Rotational and translational excitation of CO2 molecules by hot hydrogen atoms have been studied via time dependent diode laser absorption spectroscopy. This high resolution infrared laser probe technique has been used to measure Doppler recoil profiles of CO2 molecules as they undergo translational and rotational excitation due to collisions with translationally energetic hydrogen atoms. The detailed CO2 absorption Line shapes show clear evidence of scattering both into and out of each rotational state. Classical scattering calculations were performed using a hard shell potential and the infinite order sudden approximation to simulate the experimentally observed Doppler profiles for each CO2 rotational state. The widths of the Doppler profiles for molecules scattered into each rotational state were well fit by this simple potential model, but the scattering amplitudes (number of molecules scattered into each state) were not predicted as accurately by the calculations. Correlations between translational and rotational energy transfer, in which translational recoil is found to increase with increasing changes in angular momentum Delta J, are clearly observed in both the experimental results and the calculations. When changes in angular momentum and velocity recoil caused by the scattering process are small, information is lost from the experimental analysis due to interference between the velocity profiles for molecules scattered into and out of a given rotational state.