References

ACP

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics

ACP

1680-7324

Copernicus GmbH

Göttingen, Germany

10.5194/acp-7-1809-2007

Comparison of box-air-mass-factors and radiances for Multiple-Axis Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy (MAX-DOAS) geometries calculated from different UV/visible radiative transfer models

Wagner

¹ ² Burrows

J. P.

³ Deutschmann

¹ Dix

¹ von Friedeburg

⁴ Frieß

¹ Hendrick

⁵ Heue

K.-P.

¹ Irie

⁶ Iwabuchi

⁶ Kanaya

⁶ Keller

⁷ McLinden

C. A.

⁸ Oetjen

³ Palazzi

⁹ Petritoli

⁹ Platt

¹ Postylyakov

¹⁰ Pukite

² Richter

³ van Roozendael

⁵ Rozanov

³ Rozanov

³ Sinreich

¹ Sanghavi

¹ Wittrock

Institut für Umweltphysik, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

Max-Planck-Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany

Institut für Umweltphysik, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

Wiley-VCH, Berlin, Germany

Institut d'Aéronomie Spatiale de Belgique, Brussels, Belgium

Frontier Research Center for Global Change, Japan Agency for Marine Earth Science and Technology, Yokohama, Japan

Paul Scherrer Institute, Villigen, Switzerland

Environment Canada, Toronto, Canada

Institute of Atmospheric Science and Climate, Bologna, Italy

Obukhov Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Moscow, Russia

13 04 2007

7 7 1809 1833

This is an open-access article ditributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

This article is available from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/7/1809/2007/acp-7-1809-2007.html

The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/7/1809/2007/acp-7-1809-2007.pdf

The results of a comparison exercise of radiative transfer models (RTM) of various international research groups for Multiple AXis Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy (MAX-DOAS) viewing geometry are presented. Besides the assessment of the agreement between the different models, a second focus of the comparison was the systematic investigation of the sensitivity of the MAX-DOAS technique under various viewing geometries and aerosol conditions. In contrast to previous comparison exercises, box-air-mass-factors (box-AMFs) for different atmospheric height layers were modelled, which describe the sensitivity of the measurements as a function of altitude. In addition, radiances were calculated allowing the identification of potential errors, which might be overlooked if only AMFs are compared. Accurate modelling of radiances is also a prerequisite for the correct interpretation of satellite observations, for which the received radiance can strongly vary across the large ground pixels, and might be also important for the retrieval of aerosol properties as a future application of MAX-DOAS. The comparison exercises included different wavelengths and atmospheric scenarios (with and without aerosols). The strong and systematic influence of aerosol scattering indicates that from MAX-DOAS observations also information on atmospheric aerosols can be retrieved. During the various iterations of the exercises, the results from all models showed a substantial convergence, and the final data sets agreed for most cases within about 5%. Larger deviations were found for cases with low atmospheric optical depth, for which the photon path lengths along the line of sight of the instrument can become very large. The differences occurred between models including full spherical geometry and those using only plane parallel approximation indicating that the correct treatment of the Earth's sphericity becomes indispensable. The modelled box-AMFs constitute an universal data base for the calculation of arbitrary (total) AMFs by simple convolution with a given trace gas concentration profile. Together with the modelled radiances and the specified settings for the various exercises, they can serve as test cases for future RTM developments.

References 1

Acharya, P. K., Berk, A., Anderson, G. P., Larsen, N. F., Tsay, S.-C., and Stamnes, K. H.: MODTRAN4: Multiple Scattering and Bi-Directional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) Upgrades to MODTRAN, SPIE Proceeding on Optical Spectroscopic Techniques and Instrumentation for Atmospheric and Space Research III, 3756, 354–362, 1999.

Bassford, M. R., McLinden, C. A., and Strong, K.: Zenith-sky measurements of stratospheric gases: The sensitivity of air mass factors to geophysical parameters and the influence of tropospheric clouds, J. Quant. Spec. Rad. Trans., 68, 657–677, 2001.

Berk, A., Anderson, G. P., Bernstein, L. S., Acharya, P. K., Dothe, H., Matthew, M. W., Adler-Golden, S. M., Chetwynd, J. H. J., Richtsmeier, S. C., Pukall, B., Allred, C. L., Jeong, L. S., and Hoke, M. L. A.: MODTRAN4 Radiative Transfer Modeling for Atmospheric Correction, SPIE Proceeding on Optical Spectroscopic Techniques and Instrumentation for Atmospheric and Space Research III, 3756, 348–353, 1999.

Berk, A., Anderson, G. P., Acharya, P. K., Hoke, M. L., Chetwynd, J. H., Bernstein, L. S., Shettle, E. P., Matthew, M. W., and Adler-Golden, S. M.: MODTRAN4 Version 3 Revision 1 User's Manual. Air Force Research Laboratory, Space Vehicles Directoriate, Air Force Materiel Command, Hanscom AFB, MA 01731-3010, Hanscom, 2003.

Bobrowski, N., Hönninger, G., Galle, B., and Platt, U.: Detection of bromine monoxide in a volcanic plume, Nature, 423, 273–276, 2003.

Bogumil, K., Orphal, J., Homann, T., Voigt, S., Spietz, P., Fleischmann, O. C., Vogel, A., Hartmann, M., Bovensmann, H., Frerik, J., and Burrows, J. P.: Measurements of Molecular Absorption Spectra with the SCIAMACHY Pre-Flight Model: Instrument Characterization and Reference Data for Atmospheric Remote-Sensing in the 230–2380 nm Region, J. Photochem. Photobiol. A., 157, 167–184, 2003.

Bovensmann, H., Burrows, J. P., Buchwitz, M., Frerik, J., No\"el, S., Rozanov, V. V., Chance, K. V., and Goede, A.: SCIAMACHY – mission objectives and measurement modes, J. Atmos. Sci., 56, 127–150, 1999.

Bruns, M., Bühler, S., Burrows, J. P., Heue, K.-P., Platt, U., Pundt, I., Richter, A., Rozanov, A., Wagner, T., and Wang, P.: Retrieval of Profile Information from Airborne Multi Axis UV/visible Skylight Absorption Measurements, Appl. Opt., 43(22), 4415–4426, 2004.

Bruns, M., Buehler, S. A., Burrows, J. P., Richter, A., Rozanov, A., Wang, P., Heue, K.-P., Platt, U., Pundt, I., and Wagner, T.: NO2 Profile Retrieval using airborne multi axis UV-visible skylight absorption measurements over central Europe, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 6, 3049–3058, 2006.

Burrows, J. P., Weber, M., Buchwitz, M., Rozanov, V., Ladstätter-Weißenmayer, A., Richter, A., DeBeek, R., Hoogen, R., Bramstedt, K., Eichmann, K. -U., Eisinger, M., and Perner, D.: The Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME): Mission Concept and First Scientific Results, J. Atmos. Sci., 56, 151–175, 1999.

Collins, D. G., Blattner, W. G., Wells, M. B., et al.: Backward Monte Carlo calculations of the polarization characteristics of the radiation emerging from spherical-shell atmospheres, Appl. Opt., 11, 2684–2696, 1972.

Currant, R. and Hilbert, D.: Methods of Mathematical Physics, vol. 2, Interscience, New York, 1962.

Deutschmann, T. and Wagner, T.: TRACY-II Users manual, University of Heidelberg, 2006.

ESA Publication Division (SP-1182), GOME, Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment, users manual, edited by: Bednarz, F., European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC), Frascati, Italy, 1995.

EUMETSAT: GOME-2 Products Guide, http://www.eumetsat.int/en/area4/eps/product_guides/GOME-2/GOME2-PG.pdf, 2005.

Frieß, U., Monks, P. S., Remedios, J. J., Rozanov, A., Sinreich, R., Wagner, T., and Platt, U.: MAX-DOAS O4 measurements: A new technique to derive information on atmospheric aerosols: 2. Modeling studies, J. Geophys. Res., 111, D14203, doi:10.1029/2005JD006618, 2006.

Frins, E., Bobrowski, N., Platt, U., and Wagner, T.: Tomographic MAX-DOAS observations of sun-illuminated targets: a new technique providing well-defined absorption paths in the boundary layer, Appl. Opt., 45, 6227–6240, 2006.

Greenblatt, G. D., Orlando, J. J., Burkholder, J. B., and Ravishankara, A. R.: Absorption measurements of oxygen between 330 and 1140 nm, J. Geophys. Res., 95, 18 577–18 582, 1990.

Heckel, A., Richter, A., Tarsu, T., Wittrock, F., Hak, C., Pundt, I., Junkermann, W., and Burrows, J. P.: MAX-DOAS measurements of formaldehyde in the Po-Valley, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 5, 909–918, 2005.

Hendrick, F., Van Roozendael, M., Kylling, A., Petritoli, A., Rozanov, A., Sanghavi, S., Schofield, R., von Friedeburg, C., Wagner, T., Wittrock, F., Fonteyn, D., and De Mazière, M.: Intercomparison exercise between different radiative transfer models used for the interpretation of ground-based zenith-sky and multi-axis DOAS observations, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 6, 93–108, 2006.

Hönninger G. and Platt, U.: The Role of BrO and its Vertical Distribution during Surface Ozone Depletion at Alert, Atmos. Environ., 36, 2481–2489, 2002.

Hönninger, G., von Friedeburg, C., and Platt, U.: Multi Axis Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy (MAX-DOAS), Atmos. Chem. Phys., 4, 231–254, 2004.

Iwabuchi, H.: Efficient Monte Carlo methods for radiative transfer modeling, J. Atmos. Sci., 63, 2324–2339, 2006.

Leser, H., Hönninger, G., and Platt, U.: MAX-DOAS measurements of BrO and NO2 in the marine boundary layer, Geophys. Res. Lett., 30, 10, doi:10.1029/2002GL015811, 2003.

Levelt, P. F. and Noordhoek, R.: OMI Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document Volume I: OMI Instrument, Level 0-1b Processor, Calibration & Operations, Tech. Rep. ATBD-OMI-01, Version 1.1, August 2002.

Loughman, R. P., Griffioen, E., Oikarinen, L., Postylyakov, O. V., Rozanov, A., Flittner, D. E., and Rault, D. F.: Comparison of radiative transfer models for limb-viewing scattered sunlight measurements, J. Geophys. Res., 109(D6), D06303, doi:10.1029/2003JD003854, 2004.

Marchuk, G., Mikhailov, G., Nazaraliev, M., Darbinjan, R., Kargin, B., and Elepov, B.: The Monte Carlo Methods in Atmospheric Optics, Springer-Verlag Berlin, 208 pp, 1980.

Mayer, B. and Kylling, A.: Technical note: The libRadtran software package for radiative transfer calculations – description and examples of use, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 5, 1855–1877, 2005.

McLinden, C. A., McConnell, J. C., Griffioen, E., and McElroy, C. T.: A vector radiative transfer model for the Odin/OSIRIS project, Can. J. Phys., 80, 375–393, 2002.

McLinden, C. A., Olsen, S., Hannegan, B., Wild, O., Prather, M. J., and Sundet, J.: Stratospheric ozone in 3-D models: A simple chemistry and the cross-tropopause flux, J. Geophys. Res., 105, 14 653–14 665, 2000.

McLinden, C. A., Haley, C. S., and Sioris, C. E.: Diurnal effects in limb scatter observations, J. Geophys. Res., 111, D14302, doi:10.1029/2005JD006628, 2006.

Noxon, J. F., Whipple, E. C., and Hyde, R. S.: Stratospheric NO2. 1. Observational method and behaviour at midlatitudes, J. Geophys. Res, 84, 5047–5076, 1979.

Oetjen, H., Wittrock, F., Brinksma, E., Fietkau, S., Hak, C., Heckel, A., Junkermann, W., Medeke, T., Richter, A., and Burrows, J. P.: BREDOM: Using MAX-DOAS Measurements for long-term Observations of tropospheric Trace Gases, in: proceedings of the ACCENT AT2 symposium, Urbino, September 2005.

Palazzi, E., Petritoli, A., Giovanelli, G., Kostadinov, I., Bortoli, D., Ravegnani, F., and Sackey, S. S.: PROMSAR: A backward Monte Carlo spherical RTM for the analysis of DOAS remote sensing measurements, Adv. Space Res., 36(5), 1007–1014, 2005.

Perliski, L.M. and Solomon, S.: On the evaluation of air mass factors for atmospheric near-ultraviolet and visible absorption spectroscopy, J. Geophys. Res., 98, 10 363–10 374, 1993.

Postylyakov, O. V.: Linearized vector radiative transfer model MCC++ for a spherical atmosphere, J. Quant. Spectrosc. Radiat. Trans., 88(1–3), 297–317, doi:10.1016/j.jqsrt.2004.01.009, 2004.

Postylyakov, O. V.: Spherical radiative transfer model with computation of layer air mass factors, and some of its applications, Izvestiya, Atmos. Oceanic Phys., 40(3), 276–290, 2004.

Postylyakov, O. V.: Radiative transfer model MCC++ with evaluation of weighting functions in spherical atmosphere for use in retrieval algorithms, Adv. Space Res., 34(4), 721–726, doi:10.1016/j.asr.2003.07.070, 2004, 2003.

Postylyakov, O. V., Belikov, Yu. E., Nikolaishvili, Sh. S., and Rozanov, A.: A comparison of radiation transfer algorithms for modelling of the zenith sky radiance observations used for determination of stratospheric trace gases and aerosol, in: IRS 2000: Current Problems in Atmospheric Radiation, edited by: Smith, W. L. and Timofeyev, Yu. M., A. Deepak Publishing, Hampton, Virginia, 885–888, 2001.

Rodgers, C. D.: Retrieval of atmospheric temperature and composition from remote measurements of thermal radiation, Rev. Geophys. Space Phys., 14, 609–624, 1976.

Rodgers, C. D.: Inverse Methods for Atmospheric Sounding, World Scientific, London, 2000.

Rozanov, A. V., Rozanov, V. V., and Burrows, J.-P.: Combined differential-integral approach for the radiation field computation in a spherical shell atmosphere: Nonlimb geometry, J. Geophys. Res., 105(D18), 22 937–22 942, doi:10.1029/2000JD900378, 2000.

Rozanov, A., Rozanov, V.-V., and Burrows J.-P.: A numerical radiative transfer model for a spherical planetary atmosphere: combined differential-integral approach involving the Picard iterative approximation, J. Quant. Spectr. Radiat. Trans., 69(4), 491–512, 2001.

Rozanov, A., Rozanov, V.-V, Buchwitz, M., Kokhanovsky, A., and Burrows, J. P.: SCIATRAN 2.0. A new radiative transfer model for geophysical applications in the 175–2400 nm spectral region, Adv. Space Res., 36(5), 1015–1019, 2005.

Rozanov, A.: SCIATRAN 2.X: Radiative transfer model and retrieval software package, http://www.iup.physik.uni-bremen.de/sciatran, 2004–2006.

Sarkissian, A., Roscoe, H. K., Fish, D., Van Roozendael, M., Gil, M., Chen, H. B., Wang, P., Pommereau, J.-P., and Lenoble, J.: Ozone and NO2 air-mass factors for zenith-sky spectrometers: Intercomparison of calculations with different radiative transfer models, Geophys. Res. Lett., 22(9), 1113–1116, 1995.

Sinreich, R., Frieß, U., Wagner, T., and Platt, U.: Multi axis differential optical absorption spectroscopy (MAX-DOAS) of gas and aerosol distributions, Faraday Discuss., 130, 153–164, doi:10.1039/b419274p, 2005.

Solomon, S., Schmeltekopf, A. L., and Sanders, R. W.: On the interpretation of zenith sky absorption measurements, J. Geophys. Res, 92, 8311–8319, 1987.

United States Committee on Extension to the Standard Atmosphere: U.S. Standard Atmosphere, 1976, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, United States Air Force, Washington D.C., 1976.

Van Roozendael, M., Fayt, C., Post, P., Hermans, C., and Lambert, J.-C.: Retrieval of BrO and NO2 from UV-Visible Observations, in: Sounding the troposphere from space: a new era for atmospheric chemistry, Springer-Verlag, ISBN 3-540-40873-8, edited by: Borell, P., Borrell, P. M., Burrows, J. P., and Platt, U., 2003.

Von Friedeburg, C.: Derivation of Trace Gas Information combining Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy with Radiative Transfer Modelling, PhD-thesis, University of Heidelberg, 2003.

Von Friedeburg, C., Pundt, I., Mettendorf, K.-U., Wagner, T., and Platt, U.: Multi-AXis-(MAX) DOAS Measurements of NO2 during the BAB II Motorway Emission Campaign, J. Atmos. Environ., 39(5), 977–985, 2005.

Wagner, T., von Friedeburg, C., Wenig, M., Otten, C., and Platt, U.: UV/vis observations of atmospheric O4 absorptions using direct moon light and zenith scattered sunlight under clear and cloudy sky conditions, J. Geophys. Res., 107(D20), 4424, doi:10.1029/2001JD001026, 2002.

Wagner, T., Dix, B., von Friedeburg, C., Frieß, U., Sanghavi, S., Sinreich, R., and Platt, U.: MAX-DOAS O4 measurements: A new technique to derive information on atmospheric aerosols – principles and information content, J. Geophys. Res., 109, doi:10.1029/2004JD004904, 2004.

Wagner, T., Beirle, S., Grzegorski, M., Sanghavi, S., and Platt, U.: El-Niño induced anomalies in global data sets of water vapour and cloud cover derived from GOME on ERS-2, J. Geophys. Res, 110, D15104, doi:10.1029/2005JD005972, 2005.

Wittrock, F., Oetjen, H., Richter, A., Fietkau, S., Medeke, T., Rozanov, A., and Burrows, J. P.: MAX-DOAS measurements of atmospheric trace gases in Ny-Ålesund - Radiative transfer studies and their application, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 4, 955–966, 2004.

Wittrock, F.: The retrieval of oxygenated volatile organic compounds by remote sensing techniques, Dissertation, Institute of Environmental Physics, University of Bremen, Bremen, 2006.