High resolution mapping of nitrogen dioxide with TROPOMI: First results and validation over the Canadian oil sands

Griffin, D., Zhao, X., McLinden, C.A., Boersma, F., Bourassa, A., Dammers, E., Degenstein, D., Eskes, H., Fehr, L., Fioletov, V., Hayden, K., Kharol, S.K., Li, S.-M., Makar, P., Martin, R.V., Mihele, C., Mittermeier, R.L., Krotkov, N., Sneep, M., Lamsal, L.N., ter Linden, M., van Geffen, J., Veefkind, P., and Wolde, M.: 2019,
Geophys. Res. Lett. 46, 1049-1060.

Abstract

TROPOMI, on-board the S5P satellite, is a nadir-viewing spectrometer measuring reflected sunlight in the ultraviolet, visible, near-infrared, and shortwave infrared. From these spectra several important air quality and climate-related atmospheric constituents are retrieved, including nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) at unprecedented spatial resolution from a satellite platform. We present the first retrievals of TROPOMI NO₂ over the Canadian Oil Sands, contrasting them with observations from the OMI satellite instrument, and demonstrate TROPOMI's ability to resolve individual plumes and highlight its potential for deriving emissions from individual mining facilities. Further, the first TROPOMI NO₂ validation is presented, consisting of aircraft and surface in-situ NO₂ observations, and ground-based remote-sensing measurements between March and May 2018. Our comparisons show that the TROPOMI NO₂ vertical column densities are highly correlated with the aircraft and surface in-situ NO₂ observations, and the ground-based remote-sensing measurements with a low bias (15-30%), this bias can be reduced by improved AMFs.

   Abstract
   Plane Language Summary
   1. Introduction
   2. Datasets
      2.1 Satellite NO2 data
      2.2 In-situ measurements
      2.3 Pandora instrument
      2.4 GEM-MACH
      2.5 Alternative AMF
   3. TROPOMI over the Canadian oil sands
   4. Evaluation of the NO2 product
      4.1 Spiral flights
      4.2 Spatial correlation with the aircraft measurements
      4.3 Comparison with ground-based measurements
   5. Discussion and Conclusions
   Acknowledgements
   References

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