ALBERT

Description: Tropospheric nitrogen dioxide column retrieval from ground-based zenith-sky DOAS observations Atmospheric Measurement Techniques Discussions, 8, 935-985, 2015 Author(s): F. Tack, F. Hendrick, F. Goutail, C. Fayt, A. Merlaud, G. Pinardi, C. Hermans, J.-P. Pommereau, and M. Van Roozendael We present an algorithm for retrieving tropospheric nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ) vertical column densities (VCDs) from ground-based zenith-sky (ZS) measurements of scattered sunlight. The method is based on a four-step approach consisting of (1) the Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy (DOAS) analysis of ZS radiance spectra using a fixed reference spectrum corresponding to low NO 2 absorption, (2) the determination of the residual amount in the reference spectrum using a Langley-plot-type method, (3) the removal of the stratospheric content from the daytime total measured slant column based on stratospheric VCDs measured at sunrise and sunset, and simulation of the rapid NO 2 diurnal variation, (4) the retrieval of tropospheric VCDs by dividing the resulting tropospheric slant columns by appropriate air mass factors (AMFs). These steps are fully characterized and recommendations are given for each of them. The retrieval algorithm is applied on a ZS dataset acquired with a Multi-AXis (MAX-) DOAS instrument during the Cabauw (51.97° N, 4.93° E, sea level) Intercomparison campaign for Nitrogen Dioxide measuring Instruments (CINDI) held from the 10 June to the 21 July 2009 in the Netherlands. A median value of 7.9 × 10 15 molec cm −2 is found for the retrieved tropospheric NO 2 VCDs, with maxima up to 6.0 × 10 16 molec cm −2 . The error budget assessment indicates that the overall error σ TVCD on the column values is less than 28%. In case of low tropospheric contribution, σ TVCD is estimated to be around 39% and is dominated by uncertainties in the determination of the residual amount in the reference spectrum. For strong tropospheric pollution events, σ TVCD drops to approximately 22% with the largest uncertainties on the determination of the stratospheric NO 2 abundance and tropospheric AMFs. The tropospheric VCD amounts derived from ZS observations are compared to VCDs retrieved from off-axis and direct-sun measurements of the same MAX-DOAS instrument as well as to data from a co-located Système d'Analyse par Observations Zénithales (SAOZ) spectrometer. The retrieved tropospheric VCDs are in good agreement with the different datasets with correlation coefficients and slopes close to or larger than 0.9. The potential of the presented ZS retrieval algorithm is further demonstrated by its successful application on a 2 year dataset, acquired at the NDACC (Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change) station Observatoire de Haute Provence (OHP; Southern France).