Comparison of one year of XCH4 and XCO measurements using a EM27/SUN low resolution FTIR spectrometer to S5P/TROPOMI methane and carbon monoxide columns at Thessaloniki, Greece

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chrysanthi Topaloglou ◽  
Marios Mermigkas ◽  
Maria-Elissavet Koukouli ◽  
Dimitrios Balis ◽  
Frank Hase ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Monoxide ◽  
Satellite Data ◽  
Total Carbon ◽  
Atmospheric Composition ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Low Resolution ◽  
Development Fund ◽  
Percentage Difference ◽  
Institute Of Technology ◽  
One Year

<p>The column-averaged dry air mole fractions of carbon dioxide (XCO<sub>2</sub>), methane (XCH<sub>4</sub>) and carbon monoxide (XCO) have been measured for the first time for a whole year in Thessaloniki, Greece, using the portable Bruker EM27/SUN ground-based low-resolution Fourier Transform spectrometer, provided by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. The EM27/SUN is a reliable, easy-to-deploy, mobile, low-cost supplement to the Bruker IFS 125HR<strong>, </strong>a high-resolution spectrometer used in the Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON)<strong>. </strong>Approximately 30 of the EM27/SUN instruments constitute the Collaborative Carbon Column Observing Network (COCCON)<strong>, </strong>with stations around the globe for the quantification of local sinks and sources, working as an important supplement of TCCON to increase the global density of column-averaged greenhouse gas observations</p><p>One year of measurements of XCH<sub>4</sub> and XCO are presented for Thessaloniki, Greece. The station is located in the center of the city. The data are compared to collocated measurements from S5P/TROPOMI using 50km and ±30 min as criteria. For the XCH<sub>4</sub> comparisons, the ground based XCH<sub>4</sub> is constantly found to be lower than the satellite product. However, for ground based retrievals of XCH<sub>4</sub> using the TROPOMI algorithm and IR band, the comparison with the satellite data shows a percentage difference lower than ±2%, well within product requirements. Satellite XCO is also compared to ground observations to examine if EM27/SUN concentrations are reproduced by S5P/TROPOMI and whether the temporal variations are captured</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Aknowledgments</p><p>This work was co-funded by ESA within the Contract No. 4000117151/16/l-LG “Preparation and Operations of the Mission Performance Centre (MPC) for the Copernicus Sentinel-5 Precursor Satellite”. The satellite data were obtained through Sentinel-5P Expert Users Data Hub (https://s5pexp.copernicus.eu/). <br><br></p><p>This research was co-funded by the project "PANhellenic infrastructure for Atmospheric Composition and climatE change" (MIS 5021516) which is implemented under the Action "Reinforcement of the Research and Innovation Infrastructure", funded by the Operational Programme "Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship and Innovation" (NSRF 2014-2020) and co-financed by Greece and the European Union (European Regional Development Fund).</p>

scholarly journals Nudging technique for scale bridging in air quality/climate atmospheric composition modelling

2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 17177-17199 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Maurizi ◽  
F. Russo ◽  
M. D'Isidoro ◽  
F. Tampieri
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
High Resolution ◽  
Hot Spot ◽  
Atmospheric Composition ◽  
Low Resolution ◽  
Po Valley ◽  
Critical Areas ◽  
Model Response ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
One Year

Abstract. The interaction between air quality and climate involves dynamical scales that cover an immensely wide range. Bridging these scales in numerical simulations is fundamental in studies devoted to megacity/hot-spot impacts on climate. The nudging technique is proposed as a bridging method that can couple different models at different scales. Here, nudging is used to force low resolution chemical composition models using a high resolution run on critical areas. A one-year numerical experiment focused on the Po Valley hot spot is performed using the BOLCHEM model to asses the method. The results show that the model response is stable to perturbation induced by the nudging and that, if a high resolution run is taken as a reference, there is an increase in model skills of low resolution run when the technique is applied. This improvement depends on the species and the season. The effect spreads outside the forcing area and remains noticeable over an extension about 9 times larger.

Year-long variability of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and their contribution to winter intense pollution events in the urban environment of Athens, Greece 

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irini Tsiodra ◽  
Kalliopi Tavernaraki ◽  
Aikaterini Bougiatioti ◽  
Georgios Grivas ◽  
Maria Apostolaki ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons ◽  
Biomass Burning ◽  
Aromatic Hydrocarbons ◽  
Fine Particulate Matter ◽  
The Other ◽  
Oxidation Products ◽  
Atmospheric Composition ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Development Fund ◽  
Polycyclic Aromatic

<p>Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are organic pollutants with proven mutagenic and carcinogenic potential that originate from incomplete combustion, and partition to fine particulate matter. Nitro-PAHs & oxy-PAHs are oxidation products of PAHs with increased toxicity compared to their parent members and may reveal useful information about the aging and oxidation processes of PAHs.</p><p>In this study, we investigate the seasonal profiles of 31 PAHs and select oxidized forms such as nitro PAHs & quinones in Athens, Greece to understand their sources, levels, toxicity and impacts. PAHs levels were found to be significantly higher during winter, particularly during intense pollution episodes, compared to the other seasons. Chemical markers linked to biomass burning (BB) emissions are found to correlate well with the total amount of PAHs (ΣPAHs) during wintertime, strongly indicating that BB emissions are a significant source of PAHs. Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF) analysis showed that more than 50% of ΣPAHs originate from BB emissions and that a “factor” (composed of a specific mixture of PAHs) characterizes biomass burning emissions – and can potentially be used as a tracer. Analysis of the PMF series suggests that BB aerosol is much more carcinogenic than the effects of gasoline and diesel combustion combined. Finally, the exposure impact during winter is 9 times higher compared with the other seasons.</p><p> Acknowledgements</p><p>This work has been funded by the European Research Council, CoG-2016 project PyroTRACH (726165) H2020-EU.1.1. – Excellent. We also acknowledge support by the “PANhellenic infrastructure for Atmospheric Composition and climatE change” (MIS 5021516) implemented under the Action “Reinforcement of the Research and Innovation Infrastructure ”, funded by the Operational Programme “Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship and Innovation” (NSRF 2014-2020) and co-financed by Greece and the European Union (European Regional Development Fund).</p><p> </p>

scholarly journals Monitoring emissions from the 2015 Indonesian fires using CO satellite data

2018 ◽  
Vol 373 (1760) ◽  
pp. 20170307 ◽  
Author(s):  
Narcisa Nechita-Banda ◽  
Maarten Krol ◽  
Guido R. van der Werf ◽  
Johannes W. Kaiser ◽  
Sudhanshu Pandey ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Satellite Data ◽  
El Niño ◽  
El Nino ◽  
Air Pollutant ◽  
Satellite Observations ◽  
Total Carbon ◽  
Atmospheric Composition ◽  
Burned Area ◽  
Fire Emissions ◽  
The Impact

Southeast Asia, in particular Indonesia, has periodically struggled with intense fire events. These events convert substantial amounts of carbon stored as peat to atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and significantly affect atmospheric composition on a regional to global scale. During the recent 2015 El Niño event, peat fires led to strong enhancements of carbon monoxide (CO), an air pollutant and well-known tracer for biomass burning. These enhancements were clearly observed from space by the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) and the Measurements of Pollution in the Troposphere (MOPITT) instruments. We use these satellite observations to estimate CO fire emissions within an inverse modelling framework. We find that the derived CO emissions for each sub-region of Indonesia and Papua are substantially different from emission inventories, highlighting uncertainties in bottom-up estimates. CO fire emissions based on either MOPITT or IASI have a similar spatial pattern and evolution in time, and a 10% uncertainty based on a set of sensitivity tests we performed. Thus, CO satellite data have a high potential to complement existing operational fire emission estimates based on satellite observations of fire counts, fire radiative power and burned area, in better constraining fire occurrence and the associated conversion of peat carbon to atmospheric CO 2 . A total carbon release to the atmosphere of 0.35–0.60 Pg C can be estimated based on our results. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘The impact of the 2015/2016 El Niño on the terrestrial tropical carbon cycle: patterns, mechanisms and implications'.

scholarly journals Mapping carbon monoxide pollution from space down to city scales with daily global coverage

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 5507-5518 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Borsdorff ◽  
Joost aan de Brugh ◽  
Haili Hu ◽  
Otto Hasekamp ◽  
Ralf Sussmann ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Monoxide ◽  
Atmospheric Transport ◽  
European Space Agency ◽  
Total Carbon ◽  
Atmospheric Composition ◽  
Background Concentration ◽  
Clear Sky ◽  
Data Product ◽  
Global Coverage ◽  
The Individual

Abstract. On 13 October 2017, the European Space Agency (ESA) successfully launched the Sentinel-5 Precursor satellite with the Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) as its single payload. TROPOMI is the first of ESA's atmospheric composition Sentinel missions, which will provide complete long-term records of atmospheric trace gases for the coming 30 years as a contribution to the European Union's Earth Observing program Copernicus. One of TROPOMI's primary products is atmospheric carbon monoxide (CO). It is observed with daily global coverage and a high spatial resolution of 7×7 km2. The moderate atmospheric resistance time and the low background concentration leads to localized pollution hotspots of CO and allows the tracking of the atmospheric transport of pollution on regional to global scales. In this contribution, we demonstrate the groundbreaking performance of the TROPOMI CO product, sensing CO enhancements above cities and industrial areas and tracking, with daily coverage, the atmospheric transport of pollution from biomass burning regions. The CO data product is validated with two months of Fourier-transform spectroscopy (FTS) measurements at nine ground-based stations operated by the Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON). We found a good agreement between both datasets with a mean bias of 6 ppb (average of individual station biases) for both clear-sky and cloudy TROPOMI CO retrievals. Together with the corresponding standard deviation of the individual station biases of 3.8 ppb for clear-sky and 4.0 ppb for cloudy sky, it indicates that the CO data product is already well within the mission requirement.

scholarly journals 2019–20 Australian Bushfires and Anomalies in Carbon Monoxide Surface and Column Measurements

Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 755
Author(s):  
Shyno Susan John ◽  
Nicholas M. Deutscher ◽  
Clare Paton-Walsh ◽  
Voltaire A. Velazco ◽  
Nicholas B. Jones ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Monoxide ◽  
Total Carbon ◽  
Atmospheric Composition ◽  
Composition Change ◽  
Coastal City ◽  
Surface Measurements ◽  
Atmospheric Carbon Monoxide ◽  
Accurate Reflection ◽  
Meteorological Effects

In Australia, bushfires are a natural part of the country’s landscape and essential for the regeneration of plant species; however, the 2019–20 bushfires were unprecedented in their extent and intensity. This paper is focused on the 2019–20 Australian bushfires and the resulting surface and column atmospheric carbon monoxide (CO) anomalies around Wollongong. Column CO data from the ground-based Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON) and Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC) site in Wollongong are used together with surface in situ measurements. A systematic comparison was performed between the surface in situ and column measurements of CO to better understand whether column measurements can be used as an estimate of the surface concentrations. If so, satellite column measurements of CO could be used to estimate the exposure of humans to CO and other fire-related pollutants. We find that the enhancements in the column measurements are not always significantly evident in the corresponding surface measurements. Topographical features play a key role in determining the surface exposures from column abundance especially in a coastal city like Wollongong. The topography at Wollongong, combined with meteorological effects, potentially exacerbates differences in the column and surface. Hence, satellite column amounts are unlikely to provide an accurate reflection of exposure at the ground during major events like the 2019–2020 bushfires.

A study of the effects of hail, snow and PM on Potential Gradient

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Konstantinos Kourtidis ◽  
Athanassios Karagioras ◽  
Eleni Papadopoulou ◽  
Nikos Mihalopoulos ◽  
Iasonas Stavroulas
Keyword(s):  
Potential Gradient ◽  
Atmospheric Composition ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Development Fund ◽  
European Regional Development Fund ◽  
Research And Innovation ◽  
Innovation Infrastructure ◽  
Preliminary Study ◽  
The Impact ◽  
European Regional

<p>We present here the study of six hail events and five snow events in Xanthi, N. Greece, on Potential Gradient (PG). All hail events occurred in the spring-summer season of the years 2011-2018. A decrease in PG has been observed which has been around 2000-3000 V/m during the three hail events which occurred concurrently with rain. In three events with no rain, the decrease has been varying between 60 and 6000 V/m. In the case of only 60 V/m drop, no concurrent drop in temperature has been observed, while for the other cases it appears that for each degree drop in temperature the drop in PG is 1000 V/m, hence it appears that the intensity of the hail event regulates the drop in PG, although we do not have hail amount measurements to validate this. Regarding snow events,  the situation is more complicated, with PG fluctuating rapidly between high positive and high negative values. We present also a preliminary study of the impact of PM1.0 and PM2.5 on PG from measurements performed during 2019. We acknowledge support of this work by the project “PANhellenic infrastructure for Atmospheric Composition and climatE change” (MIS 5021516) which is implemented under the Action “Reinforcement of the Research and Innovation Infrastructure”, funded by the Operational Programme "Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship and Innovation" (NSRF 2014-2020) and co-financed by Greece and the European Union (European Regional Development Fund).</p>

The importance of atmospheric acidity for nutrient deposition on global scale

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Kanakidou ◽  
Stelios Myriokefalitakis ◽  
Athanasios Nenes ◽  
Nikos Daskalakis
Keyword(s):  
Trace Elements ◽  
Atmospheric Deposition ◽  
Atmospheric Aerosols ◽  
Transport Model ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Atmospheric Composition ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Chemical Transport Model ◽  
Development Fund ◽  
Nutrient Deposition

<p>Atmospheric deposition can be an important source of nutrients and trace elements for land and ocean ecosystems. Atmospheric acidity is an important driver of the solubility of nutrients and trace elements present in atmospheric aerosols. Using a global 3-dimensional chemical transport model, we summarize here human driven past and future changes in the aerosol acidity and the resulting changes in the nitrogen, phosphorus and iron atmospheric deposition and solubility. We present and discuss the acidity driven changes in the chemical speciation and geographic patterns of nutrient deposition. Areas of uncertainties and implications for ecosystems functioning are discussed.</p><p>This work has been supported by the project “PANhellenic infrastructure for Atmospheric Composition and climatE change” (MIS 5021516) which is implemented under the Action “Reinforcement of the Research and Innovation Infrastructure”, funded by the Operational Programme "Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship and Innovation" (NSRF 2014-2020) and co-financed by Greece and the European Union (European Regional Development Fund) and by the University of Bremen Excellence Chair of MK.</p>

scholarly journals Validation of methane and carbon monoxide from Sentinel-5 Precursor using TCCON and NDACC-IRWG stations

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (9) ◽  
pp. 6249-6304
Author(s):  
Mahesh Kumar Sha ◽  
Bavo Langerock ◽  
Jean-François L. Blavier ◽  
Thomas Blumenstock ◽  
Tobias Borsdorff ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Monoxide ◽  
Mole Fraction ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Systematic Difference ◽  
Total Carbon ◽  
Atmospheric Composition ◽  
Dry Air ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Quality Filtering ◽  
Total Column

Abstract. The Sentinel-5 Precursor (S5P) mission with the TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) on board has been measuring solar radiation backscattered by the Earth's atmosphere and surface since its launch on 13 October 2017. In this paper, we present for the first time the S5P operational methane (CH4) and carbon monoxide (CO) products' validation results covering a period of about 3 years using global Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON) and Infrared Working Group of the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC-IRWG) network data, accounting for a priori alignment and smoothing uncertainties in the validation, and testing the sensitivity of validation results towards the application of advanced co-location criteria. We found that the S5P standard and bias-corrected CH4 data over land surface for the recommended quality filtering fulfil the mission requirements. The systematic difference of the bias-corrected total column-averaged dry air mole fraction of methane (XCH4) data with respect to TCCON data is -0.26±0.56 % in comparison to -0.68±0.74 % for the standard XCH4 data, with a correlation of 0.6 for most stations. The bias shows a seasonal dependence. We found that the S5P CO data over all surfaces for the recommended quality filtering generally fulfil the missions requirements, with a few exceptions, which are mostly due to co-location mismatches and limited availability of data. The systematic difference between the S5P total column-averaged dry air mole fraction of carbon monoxide (XCO) and the TCCON data is on average 9.22±3.45 % (standard TCCON XCO) and 2.45±3.38 % (unscaled TCCON XCO). We found that the systematic difference between the S5P CO column and NDACC CO column (excluding two outlier stations) is on average 6.5±3.54 %. We found a correlation of above 0.9 for most TCCON and NDACC stations. The study shows the high quality of S5P CH4 and CO data by validating the products against reference global TCCON and NDACC stations covering a wide range of latitudinal bands, atmospheric conditions and surface conditions.

scholarly journals Mapping carbon monoxide pollution from space down to city scales with daily global coverage

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Borsdorff ◽  
Joost aan de Brugh ◽  
Haili Hu ◽  
Otto Hasekamp ◽  
Ralf Sussmann ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Monoxide ◽  
Atmospheric Transport ◽  
European Space Agency ◽  
Total Carbon ◽  
Atmospheric Composition ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Clear Sky ◽  
Data Product ◽  
Space Agency ◽  
Global Coverage

Abstract. On 13th October, 2017, the European Space Agency (ESA) successfully launched the Sentinel-5 Precursor satellite with the Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) as its single payload. TROPOMI is the first of ESA's atmospheric composition Sentinel missions, which will provide complete long-term records of atmospheric trace gases for the coming 30 years as a contribution to the European Union's Earth Observing programme Copernicus. One of TROPOMI's primary products is atmospheric carbon monoxide (CO). It is observed with daily global coverage and a high spatial resolution of 7 × 7 km2. Due to its moderate atmospheric residence time, its atmospheric abundance provides information on both localized pollution hot spots and the pollutant transport on regional to global scales. In this contribution, we demonstrate the game-changing performance of the TROPOMI CO product, sensing CO enhancements above cities and industrial areas and tracking, with daily coverage, the atmospheric transport of pollution from biomass burning regions. The CO data product is validated with two months of Fourier-transform spectroscopy (FTS) measurements at nine ground-based stations operated by the Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON). We found a good agreement between both data sets with a mean bias of 6 ppb for both clear-sky and cloudy TROPOMI CO retrievals. Together with the corresponding standard deviation of the station-to-station bias of 3.9 ppb for clear-sky and 2.4 ppb for cloudy-sky, it indicates that the CO data product is already well within the mission requirement.

The Union of Laughter and Forgetting? The European Union and the Construction of its own History

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hernan Tesler-Mabe
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Great Part ◽  
The European Union ◽  
European Constitution ◽  
Close Study ◽  
Dramatic Shift ◽  
One Year ◽  
The Many ◽  
Teleological Interpretation ◽  
Compare And Contrast

As recently as one year ago, the European Union was seemingly on a direct path toward its avowed goal of "ever closer union." In numerous publications, EU authorities asserted that they had the confidence of European peoples desirous only of further integration. In the wake of the failed referenda for a European Constitution, however, enthusiasts of European Union can no longer be certain that their enterprise will succeed. The European Union, once strong and united, seems now an entity teetering on the edge of collapse. The reasons for such a dramatic shift are, of course, wide-ranging. Yet I would suggest that a great part of the general European disillusionment with European Union has come about as a result of the actions of the Europeanists themselves. Over the last decades, European officials have exhibited a frightfully high incidence of revisionism in their literature. This practice, I argue, has caused many Europeans to question the integrity of the project of European Union. For my presentation, I intend to undertake a close study of a selection of documents published by the European Communities. In this endeavour, I will compare and contrast the messages imparted in different editions of these works and consider the semiotic significance of the textual and non-textual language appearing therein. In this manner, I hope to achieve two aims. First, I mean to add a corrective element to a literature that, guided by a teleological interpretation of integration, endows integration with”logic" to be found only in hindsight. Second, I intend to examine the many meanings that the EU has had over its history and assess how closely policy has adhered to the ideological goals of prominent Europeanists. In sum, I hope to shed light on the fundamental disconnect between advocates of Europe and the "man on the street" and help establish a dialogue which may contribute to resolving the current impasse within the European Union. Full text available: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v2i4.178

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