Articles | Volume 11, issue 7
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-4033-2018
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-4033-2018
Research article
 | 
11 Jul 2018
Research article |  | 11 Jul 2018

Improved slant column density retrieval of nitrogen dioxide and formaldehyde for OMI and GOME-2A from QA4ECV: intercomparison, uncertainty characterisation, and trends

Marina Zara, K. Folkert Boersma, Isabelle De Smedt, Andreas Richter, Enno Peters, Jos H. G. M. van Geffen, Steffen Beirle, Thomas Wagner, Michel Van Roozendael, Sergey Marchenko, Lok N. Lamsal, and Henk J. Eskes

Data sets

QA4ECV NO2 tropospheric and stratospheric vertical column data from GOME-2A (Version 1.1) K. F. Boersma et al. https://doi.org/10.21944/qa4ecv-no2-gome2a-v1.1

QA4ECV NO2 tropospheric and stratospheric vertical column data from OMI (Version 1.1) K. F. Boersma et al. https://doi.org/10.21944/qa4ecv-no2-omi-v1.1

QA4ECV HCHO tropospheric column data from OMI (Version 1.1) I. De Smedt et al. https://doi.org/10.18758/71021031

QA4ECV HCHO tropospheric column data from GOME-2 (Version 1.1) I. De Smedt et al. https://doi.org/10.18758/71021032

Short summary
Nitrogen dioxide and formaldehyde satellite data are used for air quality and climate studies. We quantify and characterise slant column uncertainties from different research groups. Our evaluation is motivated by recently improved techniques and by a desire to provide fully traceable uncertainty budget for climate records generated within the QA4ECV project. The improved slant columns are in agreement but with substantial differences in the reported uncertainties between groups and instruments.