Furnace temperature profiles: measurement by spectroscopic methods.

The determination of atmospheric temperature profiles from ir radiance data transmitted by satellites is fast becoming a reliable meteorological tool. However, high temperature applications of the technique have hitherto been restricted, the main difficulty being poor convergence beyond temperature peaks. This paper shows that by modifying an existing atmospheric iterative inversion technique to combine radiance measurements from two detectors at each end of a common line of sight through the hot gas, retrieval of the temperature profile is possible over the whole gas slab. Practical applications include research into burner and rocket design and tighter control of industrial furnace operation.