Greenhouse gases Observing SATellite (GOSAT) is a Japanese satellite to monitor column density of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) globally from space. GOSAT will be launched in 2008. The data measured by a GOSAT sensor and ground-based monitoring station data will be used into an atmospheric transport inverse model to identify source/sink amount of CO2 in a sub-continental scale. One of the main GOSAT sensors is a nadir-looking Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS), which covers Short Wavelength Infrared (SWIR) region to measure column density of CO2. National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) is promoting researches on CO2 and CH4 sensitivity analysis, error analysis, data retrieval algorithm study, ground-based/air-borne validation strategy, and a plan of inverse model study for the SWIR FTS. A Bread-board model (BBM) of the SWIR FTS was built and tested by ground-based and airborne measurements. Several sets of the CO2 and CH4 radiance spectra over rice fields were obtained by the test measurements, and it was confirmed that the airborne measurements with a vibration insulator are effective for onboard measurements. Moreover, several improvement items of BBM have become clear.
