Analysis and interpretation of satellite measurements in the near-infrared spectral region [Elektronische Ressource] : atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane / von Oliver Schneising

Oliverschneising

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• Publié par: universitat_bremen
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 53
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 78 Mo

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Analysis and interpretation of satellite
measurements in the near-infrared spectral
region: Atmospheric carbon dioxide and
methane
Oliver Schneising
Universität BremenAnalysis and interpretation of satellite
measurements in the near-infrared spectral
region: Atmospheric carbon dioxide and
methane
Vom Fachbereich für Physik und Elektrotechnik
der Universität Bremen
zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades eines
Doktor der Naturwissenschaften (Dr. rer. nat.)
genehmigte Dissertation
von
Dipl. Phys. Oliver Schneising
aus Berlin1. Gutachter: Prof. Dr. J. P. Burrows
2. Prof. Dr. J. Notholt
Eingereicht am: 30.09.2008
Tag des Promotionskolloquiums: 24.11.20085
Abstract
Carbon dioxide (CO ) and methane (CH ) are the two most important anthropogenic
2 4
greenhouse gases. SCIAMACHY on ENVISAT is the first satellite instrument whose
measurements are sensitive to concentration changes of the two gases at all altitude
levels down to the Earth’s surface where the source/sink signals are largest. In
the framework of this thesis three years (2003-2005) of SCIAMACHY near-infrared
nadir measurements were processed to simultaneously retrieve vertical columns
of CO (from the 1.58μm absorption band), CH (1.66μm) and oxygen (O A-
2 4 2
band at 0.76μm) using the scientific retrieval algorithm WFM-DOAS. The latest
version of WFM-DOAS, version 1.0, which was developed within the scope of this
thesis, has been significantly improved with respect to its accuracy compared to
the previous versions while essentially maintaining its high processing speed (∼1
minute per orbit, corresponding to∼6000 single measurements, and per gas on
a standard PC). The greenhouse gas columns are converted to column-averaged
dry air mole fractions, denoted XCO (in ppm) and XCH (in ppb), by dividing the
2 4
greenhouse gas columns by simultaneously retrieved dry air columns. For XCO dry2
air columns are obtained from the retrieved O columns. For XCH dry air columns
2 4
are obtained from the retrieved CO columns because of better cancellation of light
2
path related errors compared to using O columns retrieved from the spectrally
2
distant O A-band.2
In order to assess the quality of the retrieved XCO , comparisons with Fourier
2
Transform Spectroscopy (FTS) XCO measurements at two northern hemispheric
2
mid-latitude ground stations are presented. To assess the quality globally, detailed
comparisons with global XCO fields obtained from NOAA’s CO assimilation system
2 2
CarbonTracker are carried out. For the northern hemisphere good agreement
with the reference data for the CO seasonal cycle and the CO annual increase
2 2
is found. For the southern hemisphere, where significantly less data are available
for averaging compared to the northern hemisphere, the CO annual increase is
2
also in good agreement with CarbonTracker but the amplitude and phase of the
seasonal cycle show systematic differences (up to several ppm) arising partially
from the O normalisation most likely caused by unconsidered scattering effects2
due to subvisual cirrus clouds. The retrieved XCO regional patterns at monthly
2
resolution over various regions show clear correlations with CarbonTracker but
also significant differences. Typically the retrieved variability is about 4 ppm (1%
of 380 ppm) higher but depending on time and location differences can reach or6
even exceed 8 ppm. Based on the error analysis and on the comparison with the
reference data it can be concluded that the XCO data set can be characterised by a
2
single measurement retrieval precision (random error) of 1-2%, a systematic low
bias of about 1.5%, and by a relative accuracy of about 1-2% for monthly averages
◦ ◦at a spatial resolution of about 7×7 . Averaging the SCIAMACHY XCO over all
2
three years provides elevated CO over the highly populated regions of western
2
central Germany and parts of the Netherlands (“Rhine-Main area”) as well as for
other source regions such as the East Coast of the United States of America or
Japan’s densely populated and industrialised centres reasonably well correlated with
EDGAR anthropogenic CO emissions. The retrieved regional enhancement over
2
the Rhine-Main area is on average 2.7 ppm including an estimated contribution
of 1-1.5 ppm due to aerosol related errors and sampling. The remaining signal of
about 1.2-1.7 ppm is assumed to be mainly due to anthropogenic emissions. This
indicates that elevated CO originating from regional CO emissions
2 2
can be potentially detected from space.
The single measurement retrieval precision of XCH is estimated to be 1.5-1.7%.
4
For 2003 detailed comparisons of the methane product with the TM5 model which
has been optimally matched to highly accurate but sparse methane surface observa-
tions are presented. After accounting for a systematic low bias of∼2% agreement
with TM5 is typically within 1-2%. It is investigated to what extent the SCIAMACHY
XCH is influenced by the variability of atmospheric CO using global CO fields
4 2 2
from NOAA’s CO assimilation system CarbonTracker showing that the CO cor-
2 2
rected and uncorrected XCH spatiotemporal patterns are very similar but that
4
agreement with TM5 is better for the CarbonTracker CO corrected XCH . In line
2 4
with previous studies (e.g., Frankenberg et al. (2005)) significantly higher methane
over the tropics is found compared to the model. Tropical methane is also higher
when normalising the CH columns with retrieved O columns instead of CO .In
4 2 2
consistency with recent results of Frankenberg et al. (2008b) it is shown that the
magnitude of the retrieved tropical methane enhancement is sensitive to changes in
spectroscopy and that possible inaccuracies in the HITRAN spectroscopic parameters
of water vapour can contribute to a potential overestimation of the tropical methane
correlated with high water vapour abundances. Concerning inter-annual variability
the analysis shows similar methane spatiotemporal patterns for 2003 and 2004. For
2005 the retrieved methane shows significantly higher variability compared to the
two previous years, most likely due to somewhat larger noise of the spectral mea-
surements. First inverse modelling results for methane surface fluxes are presented
for the year 2004 performed at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre
(EC-JRC) by Peter Bergamaschi.7
Publications
Journal articles
Schneising, O., Buchwitz, M., Burrows, J. P., Bovensmann, H., Reuter, M., Notholt,
J., Macatangay, R., and Warneke, T.: Three years of greenhouse gas column-
averaged dry air mole fractions retrieved from satellite - Part 1: Carbon dioxide,
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 8, 3827–3853, 2008.
Schneising, O., Buchwitz, M., Burrows, J. P., Bovensmann, H., Bergamaschi, P., and
Peters, W.: Three years of greenhouse gas column-averaged dry air mole fractions
retrieved from satellite - Part 2: Methane, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 9, 443–465, 2009.
Buchwitz, M., Schneising, O., Burrows, J. P., Bovensmann, H., Reuter, M., and
Notholt, J.: First direct observation of the atmospheric CO year-to-year increase2
from space, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 7, 4249–4256, 2007.
Buchwitz, M., de Beek, R., Noël, S., Burrows, J. P., Bovensmann, H., Schneising,
O., Khlystova, I., Bruns, M., Bremer, H., Bergamaschi, P., Körner, S., and Heimann,
M.: Atmospheric carbon gases retrieved from SCIAMACHY by WFM-DOAS: ver-
sion 0.5 CO and CH and impact of calibration improvements on CO retrieval,4 2
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 6, 2727–2751, 2006.
Articles in Conference Proceedings
Schneising, O., Buchwitz, M., Bovensmann, H., and Burrows, J. P.: Three years of
SCIAMACHY carbon dioxide and methane column-averaged dry air mole fraction
measurements, Proceedings ENVISAT Symposium 2007, Montreux, Switzerland,
23-27 April 2007, ESA Publications Division SP-636 (CD), p. 4, 2007.
Buchwitz, M., Schneising, O., Khlystova, I., Bovensmann, H., and Burrows, J. P.:
Three years of global simultaneous measurements of tropospheric methane, carbon
dioxide and carbon monoxide retrieved from SCIAMACHY using WFM-DOAS, Pro-
ceedings of 2nd ACCENT Symposium, Atmospheric Composition Change - Causes
and consequences - Local to global, Urbino, Italy, July 23-27, p. 5, 2007.
Buchwitz, M., Khlystova, I., Schneising, O., Bovensmann, H., and Burrows, J. P.:
SCIAMACHY/WFM-DOAS tropospheric CO, CH , and CO scientific data products:4 2
Validation and recent developments, Proceedings of the Third Workshop on the At-
mospheric Chemistry Validation of ENVISAT (ACVE-3), 4-7 Dec. 2006, ESA/ESRIN,
Frascati, Italy, ESA Publications Division SP-642 (CD), p. 7, 2006.
Dils, B., De Mazière, M., Blumenstock, T., Hase, F., Kramer, I., Mahieu, E., De-8
moulin, P., Duchatelet, P., Mellqvist, J., Strandberg, A., Buchwitz, M., Khlystova, I.,
Schneising, O., Velazco, V., Notholt, J., Sussmann, R., and Stremme, W.: Validation
of WFM-DOAS v0.6 CO and v1.0 CH scientific products using European ground-4
based FTIR measurements, Proceedings of the Third Workshop on the Atmospheric
Chemistry Validation of ENVISAT (ACVE-3), 4-7 Dec. 2006, ESA/ESRIN, Frascati,
Italy, ESA Publications Division SP-642 (CD), p. 12, 2006.CONTENTS 9
Contents
Motivation and objectives of this thesis 13
I Fundamentals 15
1 Earth’s