Reading notes-15

This paper presents the characterization and validation of retrievals of atmospheric methane(CH4) vertical profiles by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder(AIRS) on the EOS/Aqua platform. AIRS channels near 7.6um are used for CH4 retrieval, and they are most sensitive to the middle to upper troposphere, i.e., about 200-300 hPa in the tropics and 400-500 hPa in the polar region.

The atmospheric temperature-humidity profiles, surface skin temperature, and emissivity required to derive CH4 are obtained from retrievals using separate AIRS channels and teh Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU).

Comparison of AIRS retrieved profiles with some in situ aircraft CH4 profiles implied that the forward model used in the AIRS retrieval system V4.0 requried a 2% increase in methane absorption coefficients for strong absorption channels, and this bias adjustment was implemented in the AIRS retrieval system V5.0.

As a new operational product in V5.0, AIRS CH4 were validated using in situ aircraft observations at 22 sites of the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, Global Monitoring Division(NOAA/ESRL/GMD) ranging from the Arctic to the tropical South Pacific Ocean, but their altitudes are usually above 300 hPa.

The results show the bias of the retireved CH4 profiles for this version is -1.4~0.1% and its RMS difference is about 0.5-1.6%, depending on altitude. These validation comparisons provide critical assessment of the retrieval algorithm and will continue using more in situ observations together with future improvement to the retrieval algorithm.

AIRS CH4 products include not only the CH4 profile but also the information content. As examples, the products of AIRS CH4 in August 2004 and the difference of CH4 in May and September 2004 are shown.

From these results a few features are evident:(1) a large AIRS CH4 plum southwest of the Tibetan plateau that may be associated with deep convection during the Asian summer monsoon; (2) high mixing ratios of AIRS CH4 in southeastern Asia and in the high northern hemisphere in the summer; and (3) the increase of AIRS CH4 from May to September in the high northern hemisphere that is likely linked with wetland emission but needs more study. Further analysis of these data and its comparison with model data will be addressed in a separate paper.

As the second most important greenhouse gas next to carbon dioxide(CO2), CH4 is about 20 times more powerful at warming the atmosphere than CO2 by weight, and plays an important role in atmospheric chemistry.

For example, the reaction of CH4 with hydroxyl radicals(OH) produces CH3 and water, and this reaction removes almost 90% of CH4. The removal of OH via this reaction impacts many other reactions related with OH in the atmosphere.

CH4 is highly variable, particularly in the northern hemisphere, and its concentration over the globe has been observed to rise dramatically since the preindustrial era. However, the rate of increase of the growth rate of CH4 was observed in 1998, but since 2000 the increase rate of CH4 has been very small.

The anomalous increase of the growth rate of CH4 in 1998 was partically attributed to wetland emission, and/or anomalously high biomass burning. Recently, large emissions were observed in the Siberian peatlands and from some “unknown” sources in South America.

Current ground-based measurements of CH4 are sparse and not representative at large scales, particularly in extremely difficult measurement conditions, such as in the subarctic wetlands and permafrost regions.

Systematic observation of the vertical variation of CH4 is scarce. Therefore, space-borne measurements are crucial as they provide the large spatial and temporal coverage needed to help us better understand the variation of global CH4 and its impact on global change.

For example, CH4 in the middle atmosphere to near the tropopause region was observed from Halogen Occultation Experiment(HALOE) measurement on Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) , and these data have been used to study the seasonal variation of CH4 near the tropopause and in the stratosphere.

Methane total columns have been measured from space by the Interferometric Monitor for Greenhouse Gases(IMG) on board the Japanese Advanced Earth Observing Satellite(ADEOS) and, more recently, by the SCanning Imaging Absorption spectroMeter for Atmospheric CHartographY(SCIAMACHY) instrument on board the European Space Agency’s environmental research satellite(ENVISAT).

The IMG measurements were made by mid-infrared emission spectroscopy for only a few months. Through comparison with model data, SCIAMACHY observed larger atmospheric column-averaged CH4 mixing ratios over tropical forest, indicating some unknown emission sources, leading to further study in that region.

Compared with SCIAMACHY which uses the absorption spectra of solar radiation in the near-infrared and is sensitive to the total methane column amount, AIRS is a nadir cross-track scanning infrared spectrometer on EOS/AQUA with 2378 channels covering from 649 to 2674 cm-1 at high spectral resolution, and is most sensitive to CH4 in the middle to upper troposphere.

A combination of both measurement types will provide more information on the vertical distribution of CH4 than either of them separately, but to combine these two data sets to derive CH4 requires taking into account their difference in spatial resolution and many other aspects.

引自《Characterization and validation of methane products from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS)》