Abstract
Abstract. We present a new product with explicit aerosol corrections, POMINO-TROPOMI, for tropospheric nitrogen dioxide (NO2) vertical column densities (VCDs) over East Asia, based on the newly launched TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument with an unprecedented high horizontal resolution. Compared to the official TM5-MP-DOMINO (OFFLINE) product, POMINO-TROPOMI shows stronger concentration gradients near emission source locations and better agrees with MAX-DOAS measurements (R2=0.75; NMB=0.8 % versus R2=0.68, NMB=-41.9 %). Sensitivity tests suggest that implicit aerosol corrections, as in TM5-MP-DOMINO, lead to underestimations of NO2 columns by about 25 % over the polluted northern East China region. Reducing the horizontal resolution of a priori NO2 profiles would underestimate the retrieved NO2 columns over isolated city clusters in western China by 35 % but with overestimates of more than 50 % over many offshore coastal areas. The effect of a priori NO2 profiles is more important under calm conditions.
Highlights
Nitrogen oxides (NOx = NO + NO2) are crucial gaseous pollutants in the troposphere
TM5-MP-DOMINO NO2 vertical column densities (VCDs) values are lower than POMINO-TROPOMI by about 35 % averaged over the whole domain (Fig. 4d), by −37 %–68 % over cleaner areas (POMINO-TROPOMI < 5 × 1015 molec. cm−2), and by 0 %–66 % over more polluted areas (POMINO-TROPOMI ≥ 5 × 1015 molec. cm−2)
The POMINO algorithm to retrieve tropospheric NO2 VCDs has been successfully applied to TROPOMI over East Asia
Summary
Nitrogen oxides (NOx = NO + NO2) are crucial gaseous pollutants in the troposphere. NOx leads to the production of particulate matter and ozone (O3) and enhances levels of oxidants in the troposphere (Shindell et al, 2009), which affect air quality (Dentener et al, 2003) and human health (Hoek et al, 2013). Satellite remote sensing is widely used to monitor levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) pollution worldwide (McLinden et al, 2014; Krotkov et al, 2016; Ott et al, 2010; Russell et al, 2011; Lin et al, 2010). M. Liu et al.: A new TROPOMI product for tropospheric NO2 columns
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