Satellite Monitoring of Ammonia: A Case Study of the San Joaquin Valley

Atmospheric ammonia has recently been observed with infrared sounders from space. Here we present one year of detailed bi-daily ammonia retrievals above the San Joaquin Valley in California as observed with the IASI spectrometer and a few coincident TES measurements. Several sensitivity issues are discussed related to the sounding of ammonia, in terms of degrees of freedom, averaging kernels, altitude of maximum sensitivity and in relation to thermal contrast and concentration. We also discuss their seasonal dependence and sources of errors. We demonstrate boundary layer sensitivity of infrared sounders when the thermal contrast between the surface and the bottom of the atmosphere is large. We show that for the San Joaquin Valley ammonia can also be sensed during the night, especially when a large negative thermal contrast is amplified by temperature inversion.

CLARISSE Lieven;  SHEPHARD Mark W.;  DENTENER Franciscus;  HURTMANS Daniel;  CADY-PEREIRA Karen;  KARAGULIAN Federico;  VAN DAMME Martin;  CLERBAUX Cathy;  COHEUR Pierre-Fran¸Cois; 

2010-07-19

AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION

JRC57226

0148-0227,   

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2009JD013291.shtml,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC57226,   

10.1029/2009JD013291,