Heidelberg 2006 – scientific programme
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UP: Umweltphysik
UP 15: Poster: Atmosph
äre und Klima
UP 15.4: Poster
Tuesday, March 14, 2006, 14:00–16:00, C
Ground-based solar absorption measurements of CH4 — •Thorsten Warneke1, Justus Notholt1, Voltaire Velazco1, Katinka Peterson1, and Otto Schrems2 — 1Institut für Umweltphysik, Universitaet Bremen — 2Alfred Wegener Institut, Bremerhaven
Methane (CH4) is an important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, which is addressed in the Kyoto-protocol. Since pre-industrial times its concentration has more than doubled. For the prediction of the future atmospheric concentration of methane a better understanding of the sources and sinks is needed. Information about atmospheric CH4 is mainly inferred from in situ measurements. The main limitation of these measurements is their sparse spatial distribution. Recently global atmospheric CH4 data retieved from the satellite instrument SCIAMACHY on ENVISAT became available. These data provides important information on methane sources and sinks. However, satellites measure the atmospheric CH4 column which is a different kind of information than the atmospheric CH4 in situ measurements. Especially due the strong decrease of CH4 in the stratosphere the in situ and satellite measurements are not directly comparable. In this work we link the satellite measurements to the in situ measurements by deriving tropospheric and total column concentrations of methane from ground-based solar absorption measurements at Ny Alesund (Spitsbergen, 79∘N). The ground-based FTIR-data is compared with in-situ and SCIAMACHY satellite data.