The horizontal resolution of MIPAS is better than expected!

The smearing and displacement of information of a MIPAS ozone retrieval

While limb sounders achieve good altitude resolution, the horizontal resolution is limited because the measured signal along horizontal line of sight. By application of the averaging kernel concept to 2-D radiative transfer calculations it could be shown that the bulk of information usually is concentrated in quite a narrow range around the tangent point. It could be shown that the horizontal resolution is limited by the horizontal sampling, i.e. the horizontal distance between adjacent limb measurements, and not, as one might think, by the horizontal smearing of information.

Reference: http://www.atmos-meas-tech.net/2/47/2009/amt-2-47-2009.html