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Investigate Air Quality Using Surface NO2 Derived from Direct Sun Column Measurements

Near the Earth’s surface, atmospheric trace gases can have important human and environmental health impacts. One such trace gas, nitrogen dioxide (NO2), is commonly emitted by traffic, biomass burning, and industrial sources. NO2 exposure can be a major threat to human respiratory health and leads to increased rates of asthma, lung cancer, and overall mortality. NO2 and other trace gases are being monitored by ground-based Pandora UV-visible spectrometers that are part of the Pandonia Global Network and this study focuses on monitoring NO2 in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and in the Detroit-Windsor Area (DWA). We present NO2 surface volume mixing ratios derived from Pandora direct sun total column measurements using the conversion method from Zhao et al. (2019). Their method uses three inputs in addition to the Pandora total columns: the stratospheric NO2 column from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI), the free troposphere NO2 column from the GEOS-Chem chemical transport model, and the ratio of NO2 surface volume mixing ratio to planetary boundary layer column from Environment and Climate Change Canada’s regional air quality forecast model, Global Environmental Multi-scale-Modelling Air quality and Chemistry (GEM-MACH). The derived estimates of surface NO2 are compared with in situ measurements. The level of agreement between the derived estimates and in situ measurements is being tested for dependence on meteorological conditions, including wind speed and direction, temperature, and surface pressure. This presentation will provide an overview of this column-to-surface conversion method, a summary of preliminary results for four sites in the GTA and in the DWA, and an outline of plans toward using this approach to improve and validate satellite estimates of surface NO2.

Host: Anson Cheung
Event series  Brewer-Wilson Seminar Series