Abstract
Abstract. TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) near-ultraviolet (near-UV) radiances are used as input to an inversion algorithm that simultaneously retrieves aerosol optical depth (AOD), single-scattering albedo (SSA), and the qualitative UV aerosol index (UVAI). We first present the TROPOMI aerosol algorithm (TropOMAER), an adaptation of the currently operational OMI near-UV (OMAERUV and OMACA) inversion schemes that takes advantage of TROPOMI's unprecedented fine spatial resolution at UV wavelengths and the availability of ancillary aerosol-related information to derive aerosol loading in cloud-free and above-cloud aerosols scenes. TROPOMI-retrieved AOD and SSA products are evaluated by direct comparison to sun-photometer measurements. A parallel evaluation analysis of OMAERUV and TropOMAER aerosol products is carried out to separately identify the effect of improved instrument capabilities and algorithm upgrades. Results show TropOMAER improved levels of agreement with respect to those obtained with the heritage coarser-resolution sensor. OMI and TROPOMI aerosol products are also intercompared at regional daily and monthly temporal scales, as well as globally at monthly and seasonal scales. We then use TropOMAER aerosol retrieval results to discuss the US Northwest and British Columbia 2018 wildfire season, the 2019 biomass burning season in the Amazon Basin, and the unprecedented January 2020 fire season in Australia that injected huge amounts of carbonaceous aerosols in the stratosphere.
Highlights
The TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) on the Sentinel-5 Precursor (S5P) satellite launched on 13 October 2017 is the first atmospheric monitoring mission within the European Union Copernicus program
The NASA TropOMAER aerosol algorithm applied to TROPOMI observations is an adapted version of the OMAERUV algorithm developed for Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI)
The only algorithm upgrade of TropOMAER is the use of a dedicated Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS)-based cloud mask
Summary
The TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) on the Sentinel-5 Precursor (S5P) satellite launched on 13 October 2017 is the first atmospheric monitoring mission within the European Union Copernicus program. TROPOMI is the follow-on mission to the successful Aura Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI; Levelt et al, 2006) that has been operating since October 2004, the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment-2 (GOME-2; Munro et al, 2016) sensors on the Metop (Meteorological Operational Satellite Program of Europe) satellites operating since 2006, and previous missions such as SCanning Imaging Absorption SpectroMeter for Atmospheric CHartographY (SCIAMACHY; Bovensmann et al, 1999). TROPOMI aerosol observations will further extend the multi-decadal near-UV aerosol record started with the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) series of sensors (1978–1992, 1996–2001; Torres et al, 1998) and continued into the new millennium by the currently operational OMI (Torres et al, 2007).
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