Calibration of a TCCON FTS at Armstrong Flight Research Center (AFRC) Using Multiple Airborne Profiles

Patrick W Hillyard1, Laura T Iraci2, James Robert Podolske3, Tomoaki Tanaka3, Emma L Yates3, Coleen Marie Roehl4, Debra Wunch5, Paul O Wennberg6, Randal T Albertson7, Donald Ray Blake8, Simone Meinardi8, Josette Elizabeth Marrero9, Melissa M Yang10, Andreas Joel Beyersdorf11, Steven C Wofsy12, Jasna Vellovic Pittman13 and Bruce C Daube14, (1)Bay Area Environmental Research Institute Moffett Field, Moffett Field, CA, United States, (2)NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, United States, (3)NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, United States, (4)California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, United States, (5)University of Toronto, Department of Physics, Toronto, ON, Canada, (6)California Institute of Technology, Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, Pasadena, United States, (7)Armstrong Flight Research Center, Edwards, CA, United States, (8)University of California Irvine, Department of Chemistry, Irvine, United States, (9)University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, United States, (10)NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA, United States, (11)NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, United States, (12)Harvard University, Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Cambridge, United States, (13)Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States, (14)Harvard University, John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Cambridge, United States
Abstract:
Satellite missions including GOSAT, OCO-2 and ASCENDS measure column abundances of greenhouse gases. It is crucial to have calibrated ground-based measurements to which these satellite measurements can compare and refine their retrieval algorithms. To this end, a Fourier Transform Spectrometer has been deployed to the Armstrong Flight Research Center (AFRC) in Edwards, CA as a member of the Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON). This location was selected due to its proximity to a highly reflective lakebed. Such surfaces have proven to be difficult for accurate satellite retrievals. This facility has been in operation since July 2013. The data collected to date at this site will be presented. In order to ensure the validity of the measurements made at this site, multiple vertical profiles have been performed using the Alpha jet, DC-8, and ER-2 as part of the AJAX (ongoing), SEAC4RS (August 2013), and SARP (July 2014) field campaigns. The integrated in-situ vertical profiles for CO2 and CH4 have been analyzed and compared with the TCCON FTS measurements, where good agreement between TCCON data and vertically-integrated aircraft in-situ data has been found.
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