Journal Article

PreJuSER-15751

http://join2-wiki.gsi.de/foswiki/pub/Main/Artwork/join2_logo100x88.png Evaluation of ACE-FTS and OSIRIS Satellite retrievals of ozone and nitric acid in the tropical upper troposphere: Application to ozone production efficiency

Cooper, M. ; Randall, V. M. ; Sauvage, B. ; Boone, C. D. ; Walker, K. A. ; Bernath, P. F. ; McLinden, C. A. ; Degenstein, D. A. ; Volz-Thomas, A.FZJ* ; Wespes, C.

2011
Union Washington, DC

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Please use a persistent id in citations: http://hdl.handle.net/2128/20641  doi:10.1029/2010JD015056

Abstract: We evaluate climatologies of upper tropospheric ozone and nitric acid retrieved from two satellite instruments (ACE-FTS and OSIRIS) with long-term in situ measurements from aircraft (MOZAIC, CR-AVE, PRE-AVE, PEM Tropics, and TC4) and ozonesondes. A global chemical transport model (GEOS-Chem) is used to guide the evaluation and to relate sparse in situ measurements with the satellite retrievals. Both satellite retrievals generally reproduce broad ozone features in the upper troposphere such as summer enhancements in the northern subtropics and larger concentrations over the tropical Atlantic versus the tropical Pacific. These comparisons indicate biases in annual, tropical mean ozone concentrations from both ACE-FTS (10-13%) and OSIRIS (5%) relative to aircraft and ozonesonde observations. More uncertain evidence suggests that nitric acid from ACE-FTS has a positive mean bias of 15%. We demonstrate that an upper limit on the ozone production efficiency in the upper troposphere can be determined using ACE-FTS satellite measurements of O-3 and HNO3. The resulting value of 196 (+34, -61) mol/mol is in broad agreement with model simulations. Higher OPE values inferred from ACE-FTS over the tropical Pacific (249 (+21, -68) mol/mol) than the tropical Atlantic (146 (+16, -41) mol/mol) reflect increasing ozone production efficiency with decreasing pollution. This analysis indicates a new capability of satellite observations to provide insight into ozone production in the tropical troposphere.

Keyword(s): J

Note: This research was supported by the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Science (CFCAS) and by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). The ACE mission is funded primarily by the CSA and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). Some funding was also provided by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). The authors acknowledge the strong support of the European Commission, Airbus, and the airlines (Lufthansa, Austrian, Air France) who have carried the MOZAIC equipment and performed maintenance free of charge since 1994. MOZAIC is presently funded by INSU-CNRS (France), Meteo-France, and Forschungszentrum (FZJ, Julich, Germany). The MOZAIC database is supported by ETHER (CNES and INSU-CNRS). Ozonesonde data available from WOUDC are provided by the India Meteorological Department (IMD), Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), Hong Kong Observatory (HKO), University of Alabama at Huntsville (UAH), and the National Institute of Meteorology of Spain-Izana Observatory (INME-IZO).

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Contributing Institute(s):

1. Troposphäre (IEK-8)

Research Program(s):

1. Atmosphäre und Klima (P23)

Appears in the scientific report 2011

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Database coverage:
; JCR ; Science Citation Index Expanded ; Thomson Reuters Master Journal List ; Web of Science Core Collection

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