References

ACP

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics

ACP

1680-7324

Copernicus GmbH

Göttingen, Germany

10.5194/acp-8-463-2008

Retrieval of global upper tropospheric and stratospheric formaldehyde (H2CO) distributions from high-resolution MIPAS-Envisat spectra

Steck

¹ ⁴ Glatthor

¹ von Clarmann

¹ Fischer

¹ Flaud

J. M.

² Funke

³ Grabowski

¹ Höpfner

¹ Kellmann

¹ Linden

¹ Perrin

² Stiller

G. P.

Institut für Meteorologie und Klimaforschung, Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, Germany

Laboratoire Interuniversitaire des Systèmes Atmosphèriques (LISA), Paris, France

Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, CSIC, Granada, Spain

now at: Kepler-Gymnasium, Ulm, Germany

01 02 2008

8 3 463 470

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/8/463/2008/acp-8-463-2008.html

The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/8/463/2008/acp-8-463-2008.pdf

The Fourier transform spectrometer MIPAS (Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding) on Envisat measures infrared emission of the Earth's atmosphere in a limb viewing mode. High spectral resolution measurements of MIPAS are sensitive to formaldehyde from the upper troposphere to the stratopause. Single profile retrievals of formaldehyde are dominated by a 60% noise error; however zonal mean values for 30 days of data during 8 September 2003 and 1 December 2003 reduces this error by a factor of 20 or more. The number of degrees of freedom for single profile retrieval ranges from 2 to 4.5 depending on latitude and number of cloud-free tangent altitudes. In the upper tropical troposphere zonal mean values of about 70 parts per trillion by volume (pptv) were found, which have been attributed to biomass burning emissions. In the stratosphere, formaldehyde values are determined by photochemical reactions. In the upper tropical stratosphere, formaldehyde zonal mean maximum values can reach 130 pptv. Diurnal variations in this region can be up to 50 pptv. Comparisons with other satellite instruments show generally good agreement in the region of upper troposphere and lower stratosphere as well as in the upper stratosphere.

References 1

Barbe, A., Marché, P., Secroun, C., and Jouve, P.: Measurements of Tropospheric and Stratospheric H2CO by an Infrared High Resolution Technique, Geophys. Res. Lett., 6, 463–465, 1979.

Bernath, P F., McElroy, C T., Abrams, M C., Boone, C D., Butler, M., Camy-Peyret, C., Carleer, M., Clerbaux, C., Coheur, P.-F., Colin, R., DeCola, P., De Mazière, M., Drummond, J R., Dufour, D., Evans, W. F J., Fast, H., Fussen, D., Gilbert, K., Jennings, D E., Llewellyn, E J., Lowe, R P., Mahieu, E., McConnell, J C., McHugh, M., McLeod, S D., Michaud, R., Midwinter, C., Nassar, R., Nichitiu, F., Nowlan, C., Rinsland, C P., Rochon, Y J., Rowlands, N., Semeniuk, K., Simon, P., Skelton, R., Sloan, J J., Soucy, M.-A., Strong, K., Tremblay, P., Turnbull, D., Walker, K A., Walkty, I., Wardle, D A., Wehrle, V., Zander, R., and Zou, J.: Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment (ACE): Mission overview, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L15S01, \doi10.1029/2005GL022386, 2005.

Brasseur, G. and Solomon, S.: Aeronomy of the Middle Atmosphere, Atmospheric Science Library, D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland, 2nd Edn., 1986.

Burrows, J P., Weber, M., Buchwitz, M., Rozanov, V., Ladstätter-Weißenmayer, A., Richter, A., de~Beek, 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.

Chance, K., Palmer, P I., Spurr, R. J D., Martin, R V., Kurosu, T P., and Jacob, D J.: Satellite observations of formaldehyde over North America from GOME, Geophys. Res. Lett., 27, 3461–3464, 2000.

Coheur, P.-F., Herbin, H., Clerbaux, C., Hurtmans, D., Wespes, C., Carleer, M., Turquety, S., Rinsland, C P., Remedios, J., Hauglustaine, D., Boone, C D., and Bernath, P F.: ACE-FTS observation of a young biomass burning plume: first reported measurements of C2H4, C3H$_6$O, H2CO and PAN by infrared occultation from space, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 7, 5437–5446, 2007.

Fischer, H. and Oelhaf, H.: Remote sensing of vertical profiles of atmospheric trace constituents with MIPAS limb-emission spectrometers, Appl. Opt., 35, 2787–2796, 1996.

Fischer, H., Birk, M., Blom, C., Carli, B., Carlotti, M., von Clarmann, T., Delbouille, L., Dudhia, A., Ehhalt, D., Endemann, M., Flaud, J M., Gessner, R., Kleinert, A., Koopmann, R., Langen, J., López-Puertas, M., Mosner, P., Nett, H., Oelhaf, H., Perron, G., Remedios, J., Ridolfi, M., Stiller, G., and Zander, R.: MIPAS: an instrument for atmospheric and climate research, Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., 7, 8795–8893, 2007.

Glatthor, N., von Clarmann, T., Fischer, H., Funke, B., Grabowski, U., Höpfner, M., Kellmann, S., Linden, A., Milz, M., Steck, T., and Stiller, G P.: Global peroxyacetyl nitrate (PAN) retrieval in the upper troposphere from limb emission spectra of the Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding MIPAS, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 7, 2775–2787, 2007.

Jöckel, P., Sander, R., Kerkweg, A., Tost, H., and Lelieveld, J.: Technical Note: The Modular Earth Submodel System (MESSy) – a new approach towards Earth System Modeling, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 5, 433–444, 2005.

Lefèvre, F., Brasseur, G P., Folkins, I., Smith, A K., and Simon, P.: Chemistry of the 1991–1992 stratospheric winter: Three-dimensional model simulations, J. Geophys. Res., 99, 8183–8195, 1994.

Munger, J W., Jacob, D., Daube, B., Horowitz, L., Keene, W., and Heikes, B.: Formaldehyde, glyoxal, and methylglyoxal at a rural mountain site in central Virginia, J. Geophys. Res., 100, 9325–9334, 1995.

Murtagh, D., Frisk, U., Merino, F., Ridal, M., Jonsson, A., Stegman, J., Witt, G., Eriksson, P., Jiménez, C., Megie, G., de~la Nöe, J., Ricaud, P., Baron, P., Pardo, J R., Hauchcorne, A., Llewellyn, E J., Degenstein, D A., Gattinger, R L., Lloyd, N D., Evans, W. F J., McDade, I C., Haley, C S., Sioris, C., von Savigny, C., Solheim, B H., McConnell, J C., Strong, K., Richardson, E H., Leppelmeier, G W., Kyrölä, E., Auvinen, H., and Oikarinen, L.: An overview of the Odin atmospheric mission, Can. J. Phys., 80, 309–319, \doi10.1139/P01-157, 2002.

Nett, H., Perron, G., Sanchez, M., Burgess, A., and Mossner, P.: MIPAS inflight calibration and processor validation, in: ENVISAT Calibration Review – Proc. of the European Workshop, 9–13 September 2002, ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands, CD-ROM, vol. SP-520, edited by: Sawaya-Lacoste, H., ESA Publications Division, ESTEC, P.O. Box 299, 2200 AG Noordwijk, The Netherlands, 2002.

Perrin, A., Keller, F., and Flaud, J.-M.: New analysis of the $\nu_2$, $\nu_3$, $\nu_4$ and $\nu_6$ bands of formaldehyde H$_2^12$C$^16$O, Line positions and intensities in the 5–10~μm spectral region, J. Mol. Spectrosc., 221, 192–198, 2003.

Ricaud, P., Alexandre, D., Barret, B., Flochmoën, E L., Motte, E., Berthet, G., Lefèvre, F., and Murtagh, D.: Measurements of mid-stratospheric formaldehyde from the Odin/SMR instrument, J. Quant. Spectroscop. Radiat. Transfer, 107, 91–104, 2007.

Rodgers, C D.: Inverse Methods for Atmospheric Sounding: Theory and Practice, Vol 2, in: Series on Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics, edited by: Taylor, F. W., World Scientific, 2000.

Sharpe, S W., Johnson, T J., Sams, R L., Chu, P M., Rhoderick, G C., and Johnson, P A.: Gas-phase databases for quantitative infrared spectroscopy, Appl. Spectrosc., 58, 1452–1461, 2004.

Steck, T.: Methods for determining regularization for atmospheric retrieval problems, Appl. Opt., 41, 1788–1797, 2002.

Tikhonov, A.: On the solution of incorrectly stated problems and method of regularization, Dokl. Akad. Nauk. SSSR, 151, 501–504, 1963.

von Clarmann, T., Glatthor, N., Grabowski, U., Höpfner, M., Kellmann, S., Kiefer, M., Linden, A., Mengistu Tsidu, G., Milz, M., Steck, T., Stiller, G P., Wang, D Y., Fischer, H., Funke, B., Gil-López, S., and López-Puertas, M.: Retrieval of temperature and tangent altitude pointing from limb emission spectra recorded from space by the Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS), J. Geophys. Res., 108, 4736, \doi10.1029/2003JD003602, 2003.

von Clarmann, T., Glatthor, N., Koukouli, M E., Stiller, G P., Funke, B., Grabowski, U., Höpfner, M., Kellmann, S., Linden, A., Milz, M., Steck, T., and Fischer, H.: MIPAS measurements of upper tropospheric C2H$_6$ and O3 during the Southern hemispheric biomass burning season in 2003, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 7, 5861–5872, 2007.