TOLNet validation of satellite ozone profiles in the troposphere: impact of retrieval wavelengths

Abstract

Abstract. The Tropospheric Ozone Lidar Network (TOLNet) was used to validate retrievals of ozone (O3) profiles in the troposphere from the TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) ultraviolet (UV), Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS) infrared (IR), and a combined UV + IR wavelength retrieval from TROPOMI/CrIS. Observations from six separate ground-based lidar systems and various locations of ozonesondes distributed throughout North America and in the Netherlands were used to quantify systematic bias and random errors for each satellite retrieval. Furthermore, TOLNet data were used to intercompare idealized UV, IR, and UV + IR convolved lidar profiles of O3 in the troposphere during case studies representative of high-O3 events. This study shows that the improved sensitivity and vertical resolution in UV + IR retrievals in the middle- and upper-troposphere resulted in tropospheric degree of freedom (DOF) values ∼ 33 % higher compared to UV- and IR-only retrievals. The increased DOFs in the UV + IR retrievals allowed for improved reproduction of mid- and upper-tropospheric O3 enhancements and, to a lesser degree, near-surface pollution enhancements compared to single-wavelength satellite products. The validation of O3 profiles in the troposphere retrieved with the UV-only, IR-only, and UV + IR Tikhonov regularised Ozone Profile retrievAl with SCIATRAN (TOPAS) algorithm developed at the Institute for Environmental Physics, University of Bremen, demonstrated the utility of using TOLNet as a satellite evaluation data set. TOPAS UV-only, IR-only, and UV + IR wavelength retrievals had systematic biases, quantified with normalized mean bias, throughout the troposphere of 11.2 ppb (22.1 %), −1.7 ppb (−0.3 %), and 3.5 ppb (7.8 %), respectively, which meet the tropospheric systematic bias requirements defined by the science teams for the TROPOMI and CrIS sensors. The primary drivers of systematic bias were determined to be solar zenith angle, surface albedo, and cloud fraction. Random errors, representative of uncertainty in the retrievals and quantified by root mean squared errors (RMSEs), were large for all three retrievals, with UV-only, IR-only, and UV + IR wavelength retrievals having RMSEs throughout the troposphere of 17.4 ppb (19.8 % of mean tropospheric column values), 10.5 ppb (12.6 % of mean tropospheric column values), and 14.0 ppb (14.6 % of mean tropospheric column values), respectively. TOPAS UV-only profiles did not meet the uncertainty requirements defined for TROPOMI for the troposphere; however, CrIS IR-only retrievals did meet the uncertainty requirements defined by this mission. The larger random errors reflect the challenge of retrieving daily O3 profiles due to the limited sensitivity and vertical resolution of these retrievals in the troposphere. Tropospheric systematic biases and random error were lower in IR-only and combined UV + IR retrievals compared to UV-only products due to the increased sensitivity in the troposphere allowing the retrievals to deviate further from the a priori profiles. Observations from TOLNet demonstrated that the performance of the three satellite products varied by season and altitude in the troposphere. TOLNet was shown to result in similar validation statistics compared to ozonesonde data, which are a commonly used satellite evaluation data source, demonstrating that TOLNet is a sufficient source of satellite O3 profile validation data in the troposphere, which is critical as this data source is the primary product identified for the tropospheric O3 validation of the recently launched Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) mission.