Author(s)

T. Wagner, S. Beirle, C. v.Friedeburg, J. Hollwedel, S. Kraus, M. Wenig, W. Wilms-Grabe, S. Kuhl & U. Platt

Abstract

Monitoring of trace gas emissions from space: tropospheric abundances of BrO, NO2, H2CO, SO2, H2O, O2 and O4 as measured by GOME T. Wagner, S. Beirle, C. v.Friedeburg, J. Hollwedel, S. Kraus, M. Wenig, W. Wilms-Grabe, S. Kiihl& U. Platt Institut fur Umweltphysik, University of Heidelberg, Germany Abstract The Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME) was launched in April 1995 and is since then continuously operating. GOME consists of four separate channels covering the spectral range from 240 to 790 nm with a moderate spectral resolution of 0.2 to 0.4 nm (FWHM). Originally designed for the measurement of ozone it was also possible to identify a large variety of trace gas absorptions of additional atmospheric species in the spectra recorded by GOME. These include several species which are located mostly or at least partly in the troposphere like BrO, NO2, HCHO, SO2, and H2O, O2, and O4. Here we present an overview on the analysis and the interpretation of these measurements. While some products (like BrO and NO2) are already analysed on a routine basis, some others like SO2 and HCHO are investigated in case studies. Because of the large size of the ground pixels observed by GOME (40 x 320 km2) nearly all GOME measurements are at least partly covered by clouds which strongly affect the analysis of the tropospheric absorbed. Examples of a cloud correction based on several parameters measured by GOME including e.g. the absorptions of atmospheric oxygen (O2) and the oxygen dimer (O4) are presented. 1 Introduction The GOME instrument is one of several instruments aboard the European research satellite ERS-2 (Bednarz [1]). It consists of a set of four spectrometers

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