The MOPITT instrument is scheduled for launch on the AM-1 platform of NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS) in 1999.  MOPITT will measure carbon monoxide (CO) and methane (CH4) in the troposphere over the entire globe for a period of five years.  Validation of MOPITT will involve the inter-comparison of MOPITT data with simultaneous co-located measurements of CO and CH4 made by ground- and airplane-based instruments.

PreMOVE (Preliminary MOPITT Validation Experiment) took place at the U.S. Department of Energy's Southern Great Plains (SGP) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) site, in March of 1998.  The purpose of the experiment was to bring a variety of atmospheric remote sensing instruments capable of performing MOPITT validation, together to one site.  This allowed the inter-comparison of simultaneous co-located measurements of atmospheric carbon monoxide (CO) and methane (CH4) by different experimental techniques.  Knowledge gained from this experiment will be used in the future validation of the MOPITT satellite instrument.

Participants and Instruments.

Groups how participated included NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research) ACD (Atmospheric Chemistry Division), NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the University of Denver, and the University of Toronto.  Instruments included:  a Cessna Citation jet-based gas-filter correlation radiometer instrument known as MATR (MOPITT Algorithm Test Radiometer) (NCAR), a high resolution FTIR spectrometer known as SORTI (SOlar Radiance Transmission Interferometer) (operated by the US DOE and the University of Denver), a Russian-built medium resolution grating spectrometer (operated by the University of Toronto), and airplane based flask-sampling (NOAA).

Results.

A post-PreMOVE meeting to discuss and analyse the results from the various groups involved is scheduled for Monday July 13 in Boulder Colorado.  Also to be discussed will be Pre-MOVE2 tenatively scheduled for October 1998.