Intercomparison of Metop-A SO2 measurements during the 2010- 2011 Icelandic eruptions

The European Space Agency project Satellite Monitoring of Ash and Sulphur Dioxide for the mitigation of Aviation Hazards, was introduced after the eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull in the spring of 2010 to facilitate the development of an optimal EndtoEnd System for Volcanic Ash Plume Monitoring and Prediction. The Eyjafjallajökull plume drifted towards Europe and caused major disruptions of European air traffic for several weeks affecting the everyday life of millions of people. The limitations in volcanic plume monitoring and prediction capabilities gave birth to this observational system which is based on comprehensive satellitederived ash plume and sulphur dioxide [SO2] level estimates, as well as a widespread validation using supplementary satellite, aircraft and groundbased measurements. Intercomparison of the volcanic total SO2 column and plume height observed by GOME2/ MetopA and IASI/MetopA are shown before, during and after the Eyjafjallajökull 2010 eruptions as well as for the 2011 Grímsvötn eruption. Colocated groundbased Brewer Spectrophotometer data extracted from the World Ozone and Ultraviolet Radiation Data Centre for de Bilt, the Netherlands, are also compared to the different satellite estimates. Promising agreement is found for the two different types of instrument for the SO2 columns with linear regression coefficients ranging around from 0.64 when comparing the different instruments and 0.85 when comparing the two different IASI algorithms. The agreement for the plume height is lower, possibly due to the major differences between the height retrieval part of the GOME2 and IASI algorithms. The comparisons with the Brewer groundbased station in de Bilt, The Netherlands show good qualitative agreement for the peak of the event however stronger eruptive signals are required for a longer quantitative comparison

A study of the total atmospheric sulfur dioxide load using ground-based measurements and the satellite derived Sulfur Dioxide Index

We present characteristics of the sulfur dioxide (SO2) loading over Thessaloniki, Greece, and seven other selected sites around the world using SO2 total column measurements from Brewer spectrophotometers together with satellite estimates of the Version 8 TOMS Sulfur Dioxide Index (SOI) over the same locations, retrieved from Nimbus 7 TOMS (1979-1993), Earth Probe TOMS (1996-2003) and OMI/Aura (2004-2006). Traditionally, the SOI has been used to quantify the SO2 quantities emitted during great volcanic eruptions. Here, we investigate whether the SOI can give an indication of the total SO2 load for areas and periods away from eruptive volcanic activity by studying its relative changes as a correlative measure to the SO2 total column. We examined time series from Thessaloniki and another seven urban and non-urban stations, five in the European Union (Arosa, De Bilt, Hohenpeissenberg, Madrid, Rome) and two in India (Kodaikanal, New Delhi). Based on the Brewer data, Thessaloniki shows high SO2 total columns for a European Union city but values are still low if compared to highly affected regions like those in India. For the time period 1983-2006 the SO2 levels above Thessaloniki have generally decreased with a rate of 0.028 Dobson Units (DU) per annum, presumably due to the European Union's strict sulfur control policies. The seasonal variability of the SO2 total column exhibits a double peak structure with two maxima, one during winter and the second during summer. The winter peak can be attributed to central heating while the summer peak is due to synoptic transport from sources west of the city and sources in the north of Greece. A moderate correlation was found between the seasonal levels of Brewer total SO2 and SOI for Thessaloniki, Greece (R = 0.710-0.763) and Madrid, Spain (R = 0.691) which shows that under specific conditions the SOI might act as an indicator of the SO2 total load. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

A study of the total atmospheric sulfur dioxide load using ground-based measurements and the satellite derived Sulfur Dioxide Index

We present characteristics of the sulfur dioxide (SO2) loading over Thessaloniki, Greece, and seven other selected sites around the world using SO2 total column measurements from Brewer spectrophotometers together with satellite estimates of the Version 8 TOMS Sulfur Dioxide Index (SOI) over the same locations, retrieved from Nimbus 7 TOMS (1979-1993), Earth Probe TOMS (1996-2003) and OMI/Aura (2004-2006). Traditionally, the SOI has been used to quantify the SO2 quantities emitted during great volcanic eruptions. Here, we investigate whether the SOI can give an indication of the total SO2 load for areas and periods away from eruptive volcanic activity by studying its relative changes as a correlative measure to the SO2 total column. We examined time series from Thessaloniki and another seven urban and non-urban stations, five in the European Union (Arosa, De Bilt, Hohenpeissenberg, Madrid, Rome) and two in India (Kodaikanal, New Delhi). Based on the Brewer data, Thessaloniki shows high SO2 total columns for a European Union city but values are still low if compared to highly affected regions like those in India. For the time period 1983-2006 the SO2 levels above Thessaloniki have generally decreased with a rate of 0.028 Dobson Units (DU) per annum, presumably due to the European Union's strict sulfur control policies. The seasonal variability of the SO2 total column exhibits a double peak structure with two maxima, one during winter and the second during summer. The winter peak can be attributed to central heating while the summer peak is due to synoptic transport from sources west of the city and sources in the north of Greece. A moderate correlation was found between the seasonal levels of Brewer total SO2 and SOI for Thessaloniki, Greece (R = 0.710-0.763) and Madrid, Spain (R = 0.691) which shows that under specific conditions the SOI might act as an indicator of the SO2 total load. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Intercomparison of Metop-A SO2 measurements during the 2010- 2011 Icelandic eruptions

The European Space Agency project Satellite Monitoring of Ash and Sulphur Dioxide for the mitigation of Aviation Hazards, was introduced after the eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull in the spring of 2010 to facilitate the development of an optimal EndtoEnd System for Volcanic Ash Plume Monitoring and Prediction. The Eyjafjallajökull plume drifted towards Europe and caused major disruptions of European air traffic for several weeks affecting the everyday life of millions of people. The limitations in volcanic plume monitoring and prediction capabilities gave birth to this observational system which is based on comprehensive satellitederived ash plume and sulphur dioxide [SO2] level estimates, as well as a widespread validation using supplementary satellite, aircraft and groundbased measurements. Intercomparison of the volcanic total SO2 column and plume height observed by GOME2/ MetopA and IASI/MetopA are shown before, during and after the Eyjafjallajökull 2010 eruptions as well as for the 2011 Grímsvötn eruption. Colocated groundbased Brewer Spectrophotometer data extracted from the World Ozone and Ultraviolet Radiation Data Centre for de Bilt, the Netherlands, are also compared to the different satellite estimates. Promising agreement is found for the two different types of instrument for the SO2 columns with linear regression coefficients ranging around from 0.64 when comparing the different instruments and 0.85 when comparing the two different IASI algorithms. The agreement for the plume height is lower, possibly due to the major differences between the height retrieval part of the GOME2 and IASI algorithms. The comparisons with the Brewer groundbased station in de Bilt, The Netherlands show good qualitative agreement for the peak of the event however stronger eruptive signals are required for a longer quantitative comparison.Published5IT. Osservazioni satellitariJCR Journalope

Evaluation of high resolution simulated and OMI retrieved tropospheric NO2 column densities over South-Eastern Europe

High resolution model estimates (10 × 10 km2) of tropospheric NO2 column amounts from the Comprehensive Air Quality Model (CAMx) for the Balkan Peninsula are compared with OMI/Aura measurements (13 × 24 km2 at nadir) for the year April 2009 to March 2010. The Balkan area contributes significantly to the NO2 burden in European air and so numerous urban, industrial and rural regions are studied aiming to investigate the consistency of both satellite retrievals and model predictions at high spatial resolution. It has already been shown that OMI can detect the tropospheric column of NO2 over polluted Balkan cities due to its fine horizontal resolution and instrument sensitivity (Zyrichidou et al., 2009). In this study the improved OMI DOMINO v2.0 satellite retrievals showed that over South-Eastern Europe the monthly mean NO2 tropospheric column density fluctuated between 2.0 and 5.7 ± 1.1 × 1015 molecules/cm2 over urban areas, 1.6–5.0 ± 0.7 × 1015 molecules/cm2 over large industrial complexes and 1.1–2.2 ± 0.4 × 1015 molecules/cm2 over rural areas for the year studied. The Comprehensive Air Quality Model with extensions (CAMx) version 4.40 is a publicly available open-source computer modeling system for the integrated assessment of gaseous and particulate air pollution. The anthropogenic emissions used in CAMx for the Greek domain being studied were compiled employing bottom-up approaches (road transport sector, off-road machinery, etc.) as well as other national registries and international databases. The rest of the Balkan domain has natural and anthropogenic emissions based on the TNO emission inventory of 2003. The high-resolution CAMx simulations reveal consistent spatial and temporal patterns with the OMI/Aura data. The annual spatial correlation coefficient between OMI and CAMx computed in this high spatial resolution analysis is of the order of 0.6, somewhat improved over those estimated in Zyrichidou et al. (2009) (R ˜ 0.5). However, in such a validation study it is important to take into account the averaging kernel (AK) information in order to achieve the creation of comparable data sets. Minor differences are found for area-averaged model columns with and without applying the kernel, which shows that the impact of limiting the effect of the a priori profile on the comparison is on average small. The main aim of the paper, which was to evaluate OMI retrieved and high resolution simulated tropospheric NO2 column densities over South-Eastern Europe and to assess the use of the averaging kernels, is achieved and the two data sources are being employed further in an inverse emission inventory creation study (Zyrichidou et al., in preparation)

Global validation of IASI/Metop-A and IASI/Metop-B total ozone columns with ground-based measurements

International audienc

Evaluating a New Homogeneous Total Ozone Climate Data Record from GOME/ERS-2, SCIAMACHY/Envisat, and GOME-2/MetOp-A

The European Space Agency's Ozone Climate Change Initiative (O3-CCI) project aims at producing and validating a number of high-quality ozone data products generated from different satellite sensors. For total ozone, the O3-CCI approach consists of minimizing sources of bias and systematic uncertainties by applying a common retrieval algorithm to all level 1 data sets, in order to enhance the consistency between the level 2 data sets from individual sensors. Here we present the evaluation of the total ozone products from the European sensors Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME)/ERS-2, SCIAMACHY/Envisat, and GOME-2/MetOp-A produced with the GOME-type Direct FITting (GODFIT) algorithm v3. Measurements from the three sensors span more than 16 years, from 1996 to 2012. In this work, we present the latest O3-CCI total ozone validation results using as reference ground-based measurements from Brewer and Dobson spectrophotometers archived at the World Ozone and UV Data Centre of the World Meteorological Organization as well as from UV-visible differential optical absorption spectroscopy (DOAS)/Systme DAnalyse par Observations Znithales (SAOZ) instruments from the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change. In particular, we investigate possible dependencies in these new GODFIT v3 total ozone data sets with respect to latitude, season, solar zenith angle, and different cloud parameters, using the most adequate type of ground-based instrument. We show that these three O3-CCI total ozone data products behave very similarly and are less sensitive to instrumental degradation, mainly as a result of the new reflectance soft-calibration scheme. The mean bias to the ground-based observations is found to be within the 1 plus or minus 1 percent level for all three sensors while the near-zero decadal stability of the total ozone columns (TOCs) provided by the three European instruments falls well within the 1-3 percent requirement of the European Space Agency's Ozone Climate Change Initiative project