Abstract
Abstract. In this paper we describe the retrievals of atmospheric trace gases from near-infrared, high-resolution solar absorption spectroscopy measurements at the Lauder atmospheric research station in New Zealand and submitted to the Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON) archive. The Lauder site (45.034° S, 169.68° E, 370 m a.s.l.) is located within a sparsely populated region of the South Island of New Zealand and is sheltered from the prevailing wind direction by the Southern Alps, which gives the site a high number of clear-sky days and an air mass that is largely unmodified by regional anthropogenic sources. The Lauder TCCON archive consists of data from two instruments: a Bruker IFS 120HR from June 2004 to February 2010 and a Bruker IFS 125HR from February 2010 to present. The bias between the two instruments is assessed to be 0.068 % for CO2. Since measurements using the IFS 125HR began, the SD about the hourly mean has been better than 0.1 % for 96.81 % of CO2 column retrievals. The retrievals have been calibrated against in situ airborne measurements to correct for biases and provide traceability to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) scales with an accuracy of 0.1 % for CO2. The Lauder TCCON time series of retrieved dry-air mole fractions of CO2, CH4, N2O, HF, H2O, HDO and CO are available from the TCCON data archive. The DOIs arehttps://doi.org/10.14291/tccon.ggg2014.lauder01.R0/1149293 for the IFS 120HR datahttps://doi.org/10.14291/tccon.ggg2014.lauder02.R0/1149298 for the IFS 125HR data.
Highlights
Atmospheric trace gases that absorb infrared radiation have an important influence on the Earth’s climate due to the greenhouse effect
With respect to atmospheric greenhouse gas measurements, these include in situ Fourier transform spectrometers (FTSs) measurements of CO2, carbon monoxide (CO), CH4 and N2O (Griffith et al, 2012), non-dispersive infrared (NDIR) measurements of CO2 using a LI-COR LI-7000 instrument and flask samples for subsequent measurements of CO2, CO, CH4, N2O and stable isotopologues of CO2, which are collected between 15:00 and 16:00 NZST when the wind speed is above 5 m s−1 in order to sample a well mixed boundary layer (Brailsford et al, 2012)
The performance and alignment of both instruments is monitored through monthly retrievals of the instrumental line shape (ILS) from spectra obtained from a lamp source with a reference hydrogen chloride (HCl) cell, using the LINEFIT 14 software (Hase et al, 2013)
Summary
Atmospheric trace gases that absorb infrared radiation have an important influence on the Earth’s climate due to the greenhouse effect. Accumulation of some of these species, most notably carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4), are causing changes to the global radiation budget, which in turn is modifying the climate system. In order to understand the direct and indirect influences this process is having on the climate, it is important to understand the global distribution, sources and sinks of these gases. One method for measuring the total column abundance of these gases is high-resolution solar absorption spectroscopy using Fourier transform spectrometers (FTSs) in the nearinfrared spectral region. The Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON, Wunch et al, 2011a) consists of a geographically dispersed network of such instruments designed to provide consistent and precise retrievals of a number of the atmospheric species.
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