Optimal Interpolation for Infrared Products from Hyperspectral Satellite Imagers and Sounders †

Thermal infrared remote sensing measurements have greatly improved in terms of spectral, spatial, and temporal resolution. These improvements are producing a clearer picture of the land surface and Earth atmospheric composition than ever before. Nevertheless, the analysis of this big quantity of data presents important challenges due to incomplete temporal and spatial recorded information. The aim of the present paper is to discuss a methodology to retrieve missing values of some interesting geophysical variables on a spatial field retrieved from spatially scattered infrared satellite observations in order to yield level 3, regularly gridded, data. The technique is based on a 2-Dimensional (2D) Optimal Interpolation (OI) scheme and is derived from the broad class of Kalman filter or Bayesian estimation theory. The goodness of the approach has been tested on 15-min temporal resolution Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI) emissivity and surface temperature (ST) products over South Italy (land and sea), on Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) atmospheric ammonia ([Formula: see text]) concentration over North Italy and carbon monoxide ([Formula: see text]), sulfur dioxide ([Formula: see text]) and [Formula: see text] concentrations over China. All these gases affect air quality. Moreover, sea surface temperature (SST) retrievals have been compared with gridded data from MODIS (Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) observations. For gases concentration we have considered data from 3 different emission inventories, that is, Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research v3.4.2 (EDGARv3.4.2), the Regional Emission inventory in ASiav3.1 (REASv3.1) and MarcoPolov0.1, plus an independent study. The results show the efficacy of the proposed strategy to better capture the daily cycle for surface parameters and to detect hotspots of severe emissions from gas sources affecting air quality such as [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] and, therefore, to yield valuable information on the variability of gas concentration to complete ground stations measurements.