Trace Gas Retrievals from the GeoTASO Aircraft Instrument During the DISCOVER-AQ Campaigns

Caroline R Nowlan1, Xiong Liu1, James W Leitch2, Cheng Liu3, Gonzalo Gonzalez Abad3, Kelly Chance3, Thomas Delker4, William S Good5, Frank Murcray5, Lyle Ruppert5, Paul F Kaptchen5, Christopher Loughner6,7, Melanie B Follette-Cook8,9 and Kenneth E Pickering9, (1)Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, United States, (2)Ball Aerospace, Boulder, United States, (3)Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA, United States, (4)BAE Systems, Boulder, United States, (5)Ball Aerospace, Boulder, CO, United States, (6)University of Maryland College Park, Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, College Park, United States, (7)NOAA Air Resources Laboratory, College Park, United States, (8)Morgan State University, Baltimore, United States, (9)NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, United States
Abstract:
The Geostationary Trace gas and Aerosol Sensor Optimization (GeoTASO) instrument is a recently-developed passive remote sensing instrument capable of making 2-D measurements of trace gases from aircraft. GeoTASO was developed under NASA’s Instrument Incubator program and is a test-bed instrument for the Geostationary Coastal and Air Pollution Events (GEO-CAPE) decadal survey and the upcoming Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) satellite missions. The instrument collects spectra of backscattered UV-visible radiation for the detection of tropospheric trace gases such as NO2, ozone, formaldehyde and SO2. GeoTASO flew on the NASA HU-25C Falcon aircraft during the 2013 (Texas) and 2014 (Colorado) DISCOVER-AQ field campaigns, making satellite-analog measurements of trace gases at a spatial resolution of approximately 500x500 m over urban areas, power plants and other industrial sources of pollution. We present the GeoTASO retrieval algorithms, trace gas measurement results, and validation comparisons with ground-based observations and other aircraft instruments during these campaigns.
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