An Update on Validation of OCO-2 XCO2 Observations

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) was launched on July 2, 2014 and now has taken over two years of XCO2 observations. The OCO-2 validation plan involved comparisons of the satellite data to observations from the Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON). The comparisons to TCCON have provided a wealth of information about the quality, biases and errors in the OCO-2 data. A publication submitted in July 2016, (Wunch et al., 2016) shows that the OCO-2 XCO2 retrievals agree well globally with the TCCON with median differences less than 0.5 ppm and RMS differences typically below 1.5 ppm. We will present the latest comparisons of OCO-2 to the TCCON data, including the OCO-2 v7Br data comparisons shown in Wunch et al. as well as more recent comparisons available only after the submission of the manuscript. We will provide updates on other OCO-2 XCO2 validation related topics. We will present comparisons of the OCO-2 data to the Atmospheric CO2 Observations from Space (ACOS) data, which utilize the OCO-2 retrieval algorithm on Level 1B radiances from the GOSAT Thermal And Near-infrared Sensor for carbon Observation Fourier Transform Spectrometer (TANSO FTS). This data product will be available in August 2016 and we will show how each satellite product compares to TCCON and how the comparisons provide insight into the quality of both data sets. We will provide updates on collaborations between OCO-2 and the different aircraft campaigns that have or will occurred in 2016 (e.g., ORCAS, KORUS-AQ, ACT-America and ATom).