Quantification of lightning-produced NOx over the Pyrenees and the Ebro
Valley by using different TROPOMI-NO2 and cloud research products
Pérez-Invernón, F. J.,
Huntrieser, H., Erbertseder, T., Loyola, D., Valks, P., Liu, S.,
Allen, D., Pickering, K., Bucsela, E., Jöckel, P., van Geffen, J.,
Eskes, H., Soler S. and Gordillo-Vázquez, F. J.: 2022,
Atmos. Meas. Tech. 15, 3329-3351.
Abstract
Lightning, one of the major sources of nitrogen oxides (NOx) in the
atmosphere, contributes to the tropospheric concentration of ozone and to
the oxidizing capacity of the atmosphere. Lightning produces between 2 and
8 Tg N yr-1 globally and on average about
250 ± 150 mol NOx per flash. In this work, we
estimate the moles of NOx produced per flash (LNOx production efficiency) in
the Pyrenees (Spain, France and Andorra) and in the Ebro Valley (Spain) by
using nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and cloud properties from the TROPOspheric
Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) as well as lightning data from the Earth
Networks Global Lightning Network (ENGLN) and from the EUropean Co-operation
for LIghtning Detection (EUCLID). The Pyrenees are one of the areas in
Europe with the highest lightning frequencies, which, along with their
remoteness as well as their very low NOx background, enables us to better
distinguish the LNOx signal produced by recent lightning in TROPOMI NO2
measurements. We compare the LNOx production efficiency estimates for eight
convective systems in 2018 using two different sets of TROPOMI research
products provided by the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI)
and the Deutsches Zentrum f?r Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR). According to our
results, the mean LNOx production efficiency in the Pyrenees and in the Ebro
Valley, using a 3 h chemical lifetime, ranges between 14 and
103 mol NOx per flash from the eight systems. The mean LNOx
production efficiency estimates obtained using both TROPOMI products and
ENGLN lightning data differ by ~23 %, while they differ by ~35 %
when using EUCLID lightning data. The main sources of uncertainty when
using ENGLN lightning data are the estimation of background NOx that is not
produced by lightning and the time window before the TROPOMI overpass that
is used to count the total number of lightning flashes contributing to
freshly produced LNOx. The main source of uncertainty when using EUCLID
lightning data is the uncertainty in the detection efficiency of EUCLID.
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created: 8 June 2022
last modified: 8 August 2022