Version 1 NOAA-20/OMPS Nadir Mapper total column SO2 product: continuation of NASA long-term global data record

Abstract

Abstract. For nearly 2 decades, the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) aboard the NASA Aura spacecraft (launched in 2004) and the Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS) aboard the NASA/NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (SNPP) satellite (launched in 2011) have been providing global monitoring of SO2 column densities from both anthropogenic and volcanic activities. Here, we describe the version-1 NOAA-20 (N20)/OMPS SO2 product (https://doi.org/10.5067/OMPS/OMPS_N20_NMSO2_PCA_L2_Step1.1, Li et al., 2023), aimed at extending the long-term climate data record. To achieve this goal, we apply a principal component analysis (PCA) retrieval technique, also used for the OMI and SNPP/OMPS SO2 products, to N20/OMPS. For volcanic SO2 retrievals, the algorithm is identical between N20 and SNPP/OMPS and produces consistent retrievals for eruptions such as Kilauea in 2018 and Raikoke in 2019. For anthropogenic SO2 retrievals, the algorithm has been customized for N20/OMPS, considering its greater spatial resolution and reduced signal-to-noise ratio as compared with SNPP/OMPS. Over background areas, N20/OMPS SO2 slant column densities (SCDs) show relatively small biases, comparable retrieval noise with SNPP/OMPS (after aggregation to the same spatial resolution), and remarkable stability with essentially no drift during 2018–2023. Over major anthropogenic source areas, the two OMPS retrievals are generally well-correlated, but N20/OMPS SO2 is biased low, especially for India and the Middle East, where the differences reach ∼ 20 % on average. The reasons for these differences are not fully understood but are partly due to algorithmic differences. Better agreement (typical differences of ∼ 10 %–15 %) is found over degassing volcanoes. SO2 emissions (https://doi.org/10.5067/MEASURES/SO2/DATA406, Fioletov et al., 2022) from large point sources, inferred from N20/OMPS retrievals, agree well with those based on OMI, SNPP/OMPS, and the TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI), with correlation coefficients >0.98 and overall differences <10 %. The ratios between the estimated emissions and their uncertainties offer insights into the ability of different satellite instruments to detect and quantify SO2 sources. While TROPOMI has the highest ratios of all four sensors, the ratios from N20/OMPS are slightly greater than OMI and substantially greater than SNPP/OMPS. Overall, our results suggest that the version-1 N20/OMPS SO2 product will successfully continue the long-term OMI and SNPP/OMPS SO2 data records. Efforts currently underway will further enhance the consistency of retrievals between different instruments, facilitating the development of multi-decade, coherent global SO2 datasets across multiple satellites.