Versatile and Targeted Validation of Space-Borne XCO2, XCH4 and XCO Observations by Mobile Ground-Based Direct-Sun Spectrometers
A. Butz, Valentin Hanft, Ralph Kleinschek, Matthias Frey, Astrid Müller, Marvin Knapp, Isamu Morino, Anna Agustí‐Panareda, Frank Hase, Jochen Landgraf, Sanam N. Vardag, Hiroshi Tanimoto
Abstract
Satellite measurements of the atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), methane (CH 4 ) and carbon monoxide (CO) require careful validation. In particular for the greenhouse gases CO 2 and CH 4 , concentration gradients are minute challenging the ultimate goal to quantify and monitor anthropogenic emissions and natural surface-atmosphere fluxes. The upcoming European Copernicus Carbon Monitoring mission (CO2M) will focus on anthropogenic CO 2 emissions, but it will also be able to measure CH 4 . There are other missions such as the Sentinel-5 Precursor and the Sentinel-5 series that target CO which helps attribute the CO 2 and CH 4 variations to specific processes. Here, we review the capabilities and use cases of a mobile ground-based sun-viewing spectrometer of the type EM27/SUN. We showcase the performance of the mobile system for measuring the column-average dry-air mole fractions of CO 2 (XCO 2 ), CH 4 (XCH 4 ) and CO (XCO) during a recent deployment (Feb./Mar. 2021) in the vicinity of Japan on research vessel Mirai which adds to our previous campaigns on ships and road vehicles. The mobile EM27/SUN has the potential to contribute to the validation of 1) continental-scale background gradients along major ship routes on the open ocean, 2) regional-scale gradients due to continental outflow across the coast line, 3) urban or other localized emissions as mobile part of a regional network and 4) emissions from point sources. Thus, operationalizing the mobile EM27/SUN along these use cases can be a valuable asset to the validation activities for CO2M, in particular, and for various upcoming satellite missions in general.