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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">EGUsphere</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>EGUsphere</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub"></issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/egusphere-2026-919</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>The enhanced capabilities of mid-infrared limb emission sounding to observe stratospheric aerosol injection geoengineering interventions</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Sellitto</surname>
<given-names>Pasquale</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7440-2350</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Kosary</surname>
<given-names>Mona</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5658-7942</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Höpfner</surname>
<given-names>Michael</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4174-9531</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Funke</surname>
<given-names>Bernd</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0462-4702</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Hoffmann</surname>
<given-names>Alex</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff5">
<sup>5</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Ungermann</surname>
<given-names>Jörn</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9095-8332</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff6">
<sup>6</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Errera</surname>
<given-names>Quentin</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff7">
<sup>7</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Tilmes</surname>
<given-names>Simone</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6557-3569</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff8">
<sup>8</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Sinnhuber</surname>
<given-names>Björn-Martin</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9608-7320</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>Univ. Paris-Est Créteil and Université de Paris Cité, CNRS, Laboratoire Interuniversitaire des Systèmes Atmosphériques, 5 Institut Pierre Simon Laplace, Créteil, France</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Osservatorio Etneo, Catania, Italy</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research (IMKASF), Karlsruhe, Germany</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff4">
<label>4</label>
<addr-line>Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, CSIC, Granada, Spain</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff5">
<label>5</label>
<addr-line>European Space Agency, EOP Climate Action, Sustainability and Science Department, European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESA/ESTEC), Noordwijk, The Netherlands</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff6">
<label>6</label>
<addr-line>Forschungszentrum Jülich, Institute of Energy and Climate Research (IEK-7), Jülich, Germany</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff7">
<label>7</label>
<addr-line>Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (BIRA-IASB), Brussels, Belgium</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff8">
<label>8</label>
<addr-line>Atmospheric Chemistry, Observations, and Modeling Laboratory, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>21</day>
<month>04</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>22</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Pasquale Sellitto et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-919/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-919/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-919/egusphere-2026-919.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-919/egusphere-2026-919.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Using a model-based pseudo-reality (PR) future scenario and realistic pseudo-observations (POs) representative for a proposed satellite mission concept (CAIRT &amp;ndash; the Changing-Atmosphere Infra-Red Tomography explorer), we analyse the capabilities of a high-spectral-resolution limb-emission sounding techniques to detect and quantitatively monitor very weak stratospheric aerosol injections (SAI) geoengineering interventions, in terms of the injected sulphur dioxide (SO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt;) and its evolution into sulphate aerosols (SA). Our results suggest that this technique would detect SO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; injections, at the horizontal and vertical scale, within hours to a few days since the SAI deployment. This concept would quantify the SO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; injected mass, even for injections of the order of magnitude of a few to some tens of tonnes of SO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt;, characteristic of &quot;near-term&quot; to &quot;mid-term&quot; experiments feasible even unilaterally/illegally, or in the context of small-scale outdoor experiments, with presently existing technology and at relatively low cost. In addition, our results suggest that this concept would be able to track the temporal evolution of the subsequently formed SA, as it spreads zonally and then toward higher latitudes through meridional dispersion, and to monitor changes in its vertical distribution over time through processes like self-lofting of the resulting SA plume. Existing satellite instruments, e.g. based on limb scattering, solar occultation, nadir observations and space LiDARs, do not have the capability to carry out such strategical observations of SAI. Our results stress the importance of increasing our global observational capabilities with high-spectral-resolution limb-emission satellite instruments, a capability not available at present and not foreseen in the near future.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="22"/></counts>
<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>European Space Agency</funding-source>
<award-id>CAIRT PerRec</award-id>
<award-id>STATISTICS</award-id>
</award-group>
<award-group id="gs2">
<funding-source>Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales</funding-source>
<award-id>EXTRA-SAT</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
</article-meta>
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