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The MOPITT (Measurements of Pollution in the Troposphere) remote sensing instrument monitors the global distribution of carbon monoxide from a polar‐orbiting platform. Calculated averaging kernels for operational MOPITT CO profiles indicate the capability of independently retrieving mid‐ and upper‐tropospheric CO. The information content in MOPITT retrievals is objectively quantified through calculation of the Degrees of Freedom for Signal (DFS), which indicates the number of independent pieces of information in the retrieved profile. DFS values larger than 1 (indicating some amount of profile shape information) are common in tropical and midlatitude scenes. The existence of shape information in actual MOPITT retrieved profiles is also verified through (1) a quantitative comparison with in‐situ data acquired as part of MOPITT validation and (2) a qualitative comparison with monthly mean rain rate (as an index for convection) in the Tropical Eastern Pacific Ocean.
Deeter et al. (Sun,) studied this question.