Carbon Monoxide in Optically Thick Wildfire Smoke: Evaluating TROPOMI Using CU Airborne SOF Column Observations
Abstract
TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) measurements of carbon monoxide (CO) vertical column enhancements in optically thick biomass burning plumes were evaluated using measurements from the University of Colorado Airborne Solar Occultation Flux (CU AirSOF) instrument during the 2018 Biomass Burning Fluxes of Trace Gases and Aerosols (BB-FLUX) field campaign in the northwestern United States. The different temporal and spatial scales and measurement geometries sampled from the aircraft and satellite are actively accounted for by (1) focusing on coincident measurements, (2) comparing spatial integrals of CO enhancements across plume transects, (3) using the FLEXible PARTicle (FLEXPART) dispersion model to correct for atmospheric transport, and (4) accounting for Averaging Kernels (AVK). TROPOMI is found to be systematically higher relative to the aircraft by +36% for the operational product (+27% preoperational product) without geospatial and temporal corrections. Consecutive transects by CU AirSOF revealed significant variations between integrated CO enhancements (on average 28% over 30 min) on the satellite sub-pixel scale. When the additional corrections are applied (FLEXPART, and to a lesser degree also AVK), the average bias is reduced to +10% for the operational product (+7.2% preoperational), which is insignificant within 15% uncertainty (variability among case studies, 95% confidence level). Radiative transfer simulations in synthetic plumes indicate that multiple…
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Rowe et al. (2022) found that multiple scattering on aerosols may be responsible for 5%-10% of increased XCO observations from TROPOMI in thick smoke plumes.
“Alternatively, Rowe et al. (2022) found that multiple scattering on aerosols may be responsible for 5 %-10 % of the increased X CO observations from TROPOMI in thick smoke plumes.”
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Frausto-Vicencio, I., Heerah, S., Meyer, A. G., Parker, H. A., Dubey, M., & Hopkins, F. M. (2023) · Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics · doi:10.5194/acp-23-4521-2023 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
- Authors
- Rowe, J. P., Zarzana, K. J., Kille, N., Borsdorff, T., Goudar, M., Lee, C. F., Koenig, T. K., Romero-Alvarez, J., Campos, T., Knote, C., Theys, N., Landgraf, J., & Volkamer, R.
- Affiliations
- Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (US)
- University of Colorado Boulder (US)
- Space Research Organisation Netherlands (NL)
- Department of Chemistry, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0215, United States
- NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research (US)
- University of Augsburg (DE)
- Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (BE)
- Corresponding author
- Volkamer, Rainer
- ORCID
- Venue
- ACS Earth and Space Chemistry
- Publisher
- American Chemical Society (ACS)
- Published
- 2022-06-16
- Volume
- 6
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 1799-1812
- ISSN
- 2472-3452 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W4283014210
- Cited by
- 25
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 15 · 2022: 2
- FWCI
- 2.30
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- Locations
- ACS Earth and Space Chemistry (publishedVersion)
- Rare & Special e-Zone (The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology) (submittedVersion)
- OPUS (Augsburg University) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- European Space Agency (4000117151/16/I-LG)
- Netherlands Space Office
- Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences (AGS-1754019)
- National Center for Atmospheric Research (1852977)
- Belgium Prodex (PEA 40001055989)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Atmospheric Science › Atmospheric chemistry and aerosols
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Atmospheric aerosols and clouds
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Atmospheric and Environmental Gas Dynamics
- Keywords
- carbon monoxide, TROPOMI, wildfire smoke, biomass burning plumes, satellite validation, averaging kernels, multiple scattering
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