TROPOMI tropospheric ozone column data: Geophysical assessment and comparison to ozonesondes, GOME-2B and OMI
Daan Hubert, Klaus-Peter Heue, Jean‐Christopher Lambert, Tijl Verhoelst, Marc Allaart, Steven Compernolle, Patrick Cullis, Angelika Dehn, C. L. Felix, B. J. Johnson, Arno Keppens, Debra E. Kollonige, Christophe Lerot, Diego Loyola, Matakite Maata, Sukarni Mitro, Maznorizan Mohamad, Ankie Piters, Fabian Romahn, Henry B. Selkirk, Francisco R. da Silva, Ryan M. Stauffer, Anne M. Thompson, J. Pepijn Veefkind, Holger Vömel, J. C. Witte, Claus Zehner
Abstract
Abstract. Ozone in the troposphere affects humans and ecosystems as a pollutant and as a greenhouse gas. Observing, understanding and modelling this dual role, as well as monitoring effects of international regulations on air quality and climate change, however, challenge measurement systems to operate at opposite ends of the spatio-temporal scale ladder. On board of the ESA/EU Copernicus Sentinel-5 Precursor (S5P) satellite launched in October 2017, TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) aspires to take the next leap forward by measuring ozone and its precursors at unprecedented horizontal resolution until at least the mid 2020s. In this work, we assess the quality of TROPOMI's first release (V01.01.05–08) of tropical tropospheric ozone column data (TrOC). Derived with the Convective Cloud Differential (CCD) method, TROPOMI daily TrOC data represent the three-day moving mean ozone column between surface and 270 hpa under clear sky conditions gridded at 0.5° latitude by 1° longitude resolution. Comparisons to almost two years of co-located SHADOZ ozonesonde and satellite data (Aura OMI and MetOp-B GOME-2) conclude to TROPOMI biases between −0.1 and +2.3 DU (