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Unaccounted variability in NH 3 agricultural sources detected by IASI contributing to European spring haze episode
Author(s) -
FortemsCheiney A.,
Dufour G.,
HamaouiLaguel L.,
Foret G.,
Siour G.,
Van Damme M.,
Meleux F.,
Coheur P.F.,
Clerbaux C.,
Clarisse L.,
Favez O.,
Wallasch M.,
Beekmann M.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1002/2016gl069361
Subject(s) - haze , environmental science , atmospheric sciences , troposphere , particulates , trace gas , climatology , ammonia , meteorology , chemistry , geography , geology , organic chemistry
Ammonia (NH 3 ), whose main source in the troposphere is agriculture, is an important gaseous precursor of atmospheric particulate matter (PM). We derived daily ammonia emissions using NH 3 total columns measured from the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) on board Metop‐A, at a relatively high spatial resolution (grid cell of 0.5° × 0.5°). During the European spring haze episodes of 24–31 March 2012 and 8–15 March 2014, IASI reveals NH 3 total column magnitudes highlighting higher NH 3 emissions over central Europe (especially over Germany, Czech Republic, and eastern France) from the ones provided by the European reference European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme inventory. These ammonia emissions exhibit in addition a large day‐to‐day variability, certainly due to spreading practices. The increase of NH 3 emissions in the model, that reaches +300% locally, leads to an increase of both NH 3 and PM 2.5 surface concentrations and allows for a better comparison with independent measurements (in terms of bias, root‐mean‐square error, and correlation). This study suggests that there are good prospects for better quantifying NH 3 emissions by atmospheric inversions.