The inverse method of carbon monoxide from satellite measurement and the result analysis

Abstract

Greenhouse effect is one of the main reasons for climate change. Carbon monoxide (CO) is a critical air pollutant because of its short-term harmful health effects. Furthermore, since CO emission has a global warming potential, it exacerbats the climate change as an indirect greenhouse gas. Due to the fact that the number of ground-based stations is less and the chemical model simulation is greatly dependent on assumption, satellite observation becomes the effective way to acquire the information about CO distribution. Sciamachy is the first satellite instrument to allow retrieval of CO by measuring absorption in the near infrared region from reflected and scattered sunlight, which is highly sensitive to the lower layers of the troposphere where the sources, such as biomass burning, are located, and where the bulk of the gases is usually found. In this study the Sciamachy CO vertical column density is successfully inversed; after applying the instrument and cloud correction, yearly and seasonal results are presented. Finally by comparing them with the fire counts of ATSR dataset and the distributions of population density and coal mines, the CO emission sources are preliminary deduced.