Explicit aerosol correction for OMI HCHO retrievals using satellite observation
Abstract
Aerosols in the atmosphere have a significant impact on trace gas retrievals using UV/visible measurements. Aerosols change the light path length and the total radiance observed by the satellite affecting the air mass factor (AMF) calculation used to convert the slant columns to vertical columns. AMF calculations derived using radiative transfer simulations require information on the atmospheric state. The current Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) trace gas products (formaldehyde, water vapor, bromine monoxide, and glyoxal) implicitly include aerosols in their cloud approximation. If aerosol information is not considered, the inaccurate a priori assumption on aerosol information can be a significant source of uncertainty in trace gas retrievals. Therefore, the quantitative evaluation of aerosol impacts on trace gas retrievals is required to improve our understanding of the total error budget of our trace gas products.
This study describes the methodology employed to examine the aerosol impact on trace gas retrieval applied to formaldehyde (HCHO) retrievals. We assess the effects of aerosol information on OMI AMFs through a detailed examination of the dependence of the AMFs to aerosol information such as aerosol optical depth (AOD), single scattering albedo (SSA), and vertical distribution of aerosols using OMI aerosol and HCHO products. This analysis will be performed for a variety of aerosol conditions, including biomass burning, urban aerosols, and desert dust. Finally, we discuss the path ahead to use OMI aerosol product to characterize AMFs uncertainties and improve them in the SAO trace gas products. This study will help to gain a better understanding of the retrieval uncertainty due to aerosols for OMI operational trace gas retrieval products.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFM.A53G2558J
- Keywords:
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- 0345 Pollution: urban and regional;
- ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTUREDE: 0365 Troposphere: composition and chemistry;
- ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTUREDE: 0368 Troposphere: constituent transport and chemistry;
- ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTUREDE: 1640 Remote sensing;
- GLOBAL CHANGE