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First comparison of tropospheric NO 2 column densities retrieved from GOME measurements and in situ aircraft profile measurements
Author(s) -
Heland Jörg,
Schlager Hans,
Richter Andreas,
Burrows John P.
Publication year - 2002
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 - 10.1029/2002gl015528
Subject(s) - troposphere , instrumentation (computer programming) , environmental science , sampling (signal processing) , satellite , in situ , boundary layer , remote sensing , column (typography) , meteorology , atmospheric sciences , geology , physics , geometry , mathematics , optics , computer science , connection (principal bundle) , astronomy , detector , thermodynamics , operating system
For the first time tropospheric NO 2 columns from GOME were compared to tropospheric columns derived from in situ measurements with the DLR research aircraft Falcon on a clear day above Austria. Under these conditions the agreement between the two methods is very good. The in situ measurements yield a tropospheric NO 2 column of (4.2 ± 1.7)·10 15 molec./cm 2 , whereas the GOME data result in columns of (3.5 ± 0.9)·10 15 molec./cm 2 and (4.1 ± 1.0)·10 15 molec./cm 2 for near‐real‐time and dedicated analyses, respectively. The most important uncertainty of the aircraft measurements is caused by the lack of data in the lower boundary layer. The GOME uncertainties in this particular case are dominated by the assumptions made for the airmass factor calculation. This work is the first independent validation of tropospheric NO 2 columns from satellite instrumentation. Further validation at other seasons, and regions, including a more comprehensive sampling of the boundary layer is needed.