Articles | Volume 8, issue 11
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-8-4785-2015
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-8-4785-2015
Research article
 | 
17 Nov 2015
Research article |  | 17 Nov 2015

Assessing 5 years of GOSAT Proxy XCH4 data and associated uncertainties

R. J. Parker, H. Boesch, K. Byckling, A. J. Webb, P. I. Palmer, L. Feng, P. Bergamaschi, F. Chevallier, J. Notholt, N. Deutscher, T. Warneke, F. Hase, R. Sussmann, S. Kawakami, R. Kivi, D. W. T. Griffith, and V. Velazco

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Short summary
Atmospheric CH4 is an important greenhouse gas. Long-term global observations are necessary to understand its behaviour, with satellite observations playing a key role. The "proxy" retrieval method is one of the most successful but relies on the contribution from atmospheric CO2 models. This work assesses the significance of the uncertainty from the model CO2 within the retrieval and determines that despite this uncertainty the data are still valuable for determining sources and sinks of CH4.