München 2019 – scientific programme

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SYSA: Symposium Remote Sensing of Planetary Atmospheres

SYSA 1: Remote Sensing of Planetary Atmospheres

SYSA 1.2: Invited Talk

Tuesday, March 19, 2019, 14:30–15:00, Plenarsaal

24 years of atmospheric trace gas observations from spectrally resolving UV/vis satellite observations: optimisation of the spatio-temporal resolution and coverage — •Thomas Wagner — MPI for Chemistry, Hahn-Meitner-Weg 1, D-55128 Mainz, Germany

In 1995 the first instrument of a new generation of UV/vis satellite instruments (GOME) was launched. GOME measured the backscattered sun light in continuous spectral windows with a spectral resolution between 0.2 and 0.4 nm. In the measured spectra the absorptions of many atmospheric trace gases could be detected. One important novelty of GOME was its sensitivity to tropospheric trace gases (e.g. NO2, SO2, HCHO, BrO, IO). However, GOME measurements had a rather coarse spatial resolution (320 x 40 km*) and low sampling rate (global coverage after 3 days). These properties were mainly determined by technical constraints, e.g. the downlink data rate. In the following years several similar missions, but with largely improved spatial resolution, were put in orbit, e.g. SCIAMACHY, OMI, and GOME-2. Finally, in October 2017 the TROPOMI was launched. It has a spatial resolution of 3.5x7 km* and daily global coverage and provides unprecedented information on the global distribution of tropospheric trace gases and their emission sources. The spatial resolution of TROPOMI comes close to the maximum achievable value, which is eventually constraint by the intensity of the solar radiation. In this presentation novel trace gas maps from TROPOMI are presented. Also future satellite missions, in particular geostationary satellites, and methods for the optimum exploitation of the measured spectra are discussed.