Abstract. Remote sensing via differential optical absorption spectroscopy (DOAS) has become a standard technique to identify and quantify trace gases in the atmosphere. The technique is applied in a variety of configurations, commonly classified into active and passive instruments using artificial and natural light sources, respectively. Platforms range from ground based to satellite instruments and trace-gases are studied in all kinds of different environments. Due to the wide range of measurement conditions, atmospheric compositions and instruments used, a specific challenge of a DOAS retrieval is to optimize the parameters for each specific case and particular trace gas of interest. This becomes especially important when measuring close to the detection limit. A well chosen evaluation wavelength range is crucial to the DOAS technique. It should encompass strong absorption bands of the trace gas of interest in order to maximize the sensitivity of the retrieval, while at the same time minimizing absorption structures of other trace gases and thus potential interferences. Also, instrumental limitations and wavelength depending sources of errors (e.g. insufficient corrections for the Ring effect and cross correlations between trace gas cross sections) need to be taken into account. Most often, not all of these requirements can be fulfilled simultaneously and a compromise needs to be found depending on the conditions at hand. Although for many trace gases the overall dependence of common DOAS retrieval on the evaluation wavelength interval is known, a systematic approach to find the optimal retrieval wavelength range and qualitative assessment is missing. Here we present a novel tool to determine the optimal evaluation wavelength range. It is based on mapping retrieved values in the retrieval wavelength space and thus visualize the consequence of different choices of retrieval spectral ranges, e.g. caused by slightly erroneous absorption cross sections, cross correlations and instrumental features. The technique is demonstrated using the examples of a theoretical study of BrO retrievals for stratospheric BrO measurements and for BrO measurements in volcanic plumes. However, due to the general nature of the tool, it is applicable to any type (active or passive) of DOAS retrieval.
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