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- Title
Effects of daily meteorology on the interpretation of space-based remote sensing of NO<sub>2</sub>.
- Authors
Laughner, Joshua L.; Zare, Azimeh; Cohen, Ronald C.
- Abstract
Retrievals of tropospheric NO2 columns from UV/visible observations of reflected sunlight require a priori vertical profiles to account for the variation in sensitivity of the observations to NO2 at different altitudes. These profiles vary in space and time but are usually approximated using models that do not resolve the full details of this variation. Currently, no operational retrieval simulates these a priori profiles at both high spatial and high temporal resolution. Here we examine the additional benefits of daily variations in a priori profiles for retrievals already simulating a priori NO2 profiles at sufficiently high spatial resolution to identify variations of NO2 within urban and power plant plumes. We show the effects of introducing daily variation into a priori profiles can be as large as 40 % and 3 × 1015 molec. cm−2 for an individual day and lead to corrections as large as 10 % for a monthly average in a case study of Atlanta, GA. Comparing an optimized retrieval to a more standard one, we find that NOx emissions estimated from space-based remote sensing can increase by ~ 100 % when daily variations in plume location and shape are accounted for in the retrieval.
- Subjects
METEOROLOGICAL observations; ATMOSPHERIC nitrogen oxides; ATMOSPHERIC effects on remote sensing; SENSITIVITY analysis; METEOROLOGY; CLIMATE change
- Publication
Atmospheric Chemistry & Physics Discussions, 2016, p1
- ISSN
1680-7367
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.5194/acp-2016-536