Seminar

Abstract

Since the launch of the GOME satellite instrument in April 1995, two decades of nadir satellite UV/vis observations have accumulated from the GOME, SCIAMACHY, OMI and GOME-2 instruments, providing a wealth of information on the global distributions of tropospheric trace gases. Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) has strong absorption bands in the UV/visible spectrum and therefore is one of the main observational targets. Owing to its short atmospheric lifetime, at least close to the surface, it is a good proxy for NOx emissions and also is an air pollutant of interest for environmental monitoring.

In this presentation, an overview will be given on recent work on satellite NO2 data at the University of Bremen, including temporal changes observed in the data over anthropogenic emission regions, the link between NO2 and biomass burning emissions in the tropics, and evidence for long-range transport of NO2. Some results of attempts to retrieve information on the vertical NO2 distribution from the measurements themselves will be presented and an outlook be given on the potential of the TROPOMI instrument which will be launched on Sentinel-5P in summer 2016 and the geostationary Sentinel-4 instrument scheduled for 2020.