Calibration of TCCON column-averaged CO₂: the first aircraft campaign over European TCCON sites

Creators: Messerschmidt, J.; Geibel, M. C.; Blumenstock, T.; Chen, H.; Deutscher, N. M.; Engel, A.; Feist, D. G.; Gerbig, C.; Gisi, M.; Hase, F.; Katrynski, K.; Kolle, O.; Lavrič, J. V.; Notholt, J.; Palm, M.; Ramonet, M.; Rettinger, M.; Schmidt, M.; Sussmann, R.; Toon, G. C.; Truong, F.; Warneke, T.; Wennberg, P. O.; Wunch, D.; Xueref-Remy, I.

Abstract

The Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON) is a ground-based network of Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS) sites around the globe, where the column abundances of CO₂, CH₄, N₂O, CO and O₂ are measured. CO₂ is constrained with a precision better than 0.25% (1-σ). To achieve a similarly high accuracy, calibration to World Meteorological Organization (WMO) standards is required. This paper introduces the first aircraft calibration campaign of five European TCCON sites and a mobile FTS instrument. A series of WMO standards in-situ profiles were obtained over European TCCON sites via aircraft and compared with retrievals of CO₂ column amounts from the TCCON instruments. The results of the campaign show that the FTS measurements are consistently biased 1.1% ± 0.2% low with respect to WMO standards, in agreement with previous TCCON calibration campaigns. The standard a priori profile for the TCCON FTS retrievals is shown to not add a bias. The same calibration factor is generated using aircraft profiles as a priori and with the TCCON standard a priori. With a calibration to WMO standards, the highly precise TCCON CO₂ measurements of total column concentrations provide a suitable database for the calibration and validation of nadir-viewing satellites.

Additional Information

© Author(s) 2011. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Received: 14 Mar 2011 – Discussion started: 12 May 2011 – Revised: 30 Sep 2011 – Accepted: 13 Oct 2011 – Published: 02 Nov 2011. Special issue: An integrated approach to study atmospheric greenhouse and related gases at the Bialystok tall tower, eastern Poland (ACP/AMT inter-journal SI)(ACP/AMT inter-journal SI) Editor(s): M. Heimann, J. Brandt, J. V. Lavrič, and D. Brunner. Special issue jointly organized between Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics and Atmospheric Measurement Techniques. We acknowledge the support of the European Commission within the 6th Framework Program through the Integrated Infrastructure Initiative IMECC (Infrastructure for Measurement of the European Carbon Cycle) and the Integrated Project GEOmon (Global Earth Observation and Monitoring). The aircraft measurements would not have been possible without the great support from Enviscope GmbH (Frankfurt am Main, Germany), especially Rolf Maser and Christoph Klaus, who were responsible for the aircraft instrument integration and operation. We would also like to thank the Gesellschaft für Flugzieldarstellung mbH (Hohn, Germany), especially Svend Engemann and the other pilots, for their excellent support with flight planning and flight operations. We thank the Polish Air Navigation Services Agency for the organization of the overpass in Bialystok, Poland. At the Institute of Environmental Physics (Bremen, Germany) Katinka Petersen, Christof Petri, Benjamin Sampson and Christine Weinzierl have contributed greatly to the success of the campaign. From the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry (Jena, Germany) we would like to thank Stephan Baum, Armin Jordan, Martin Hertel, Karl Kübler, and Bert Steinberg for their contributions. We thank the members of RAMCES team at LSCE (Gif-sur-Yvette, France) for maintaining the Orléans FTS site and providing station logistics. We would also like to thank Peter Rayner at the University of Melbourne, Australia for the coordination of the project IMECC and helpful comments on the article. Implementation of TCCON data processing is supported by a grant from NASA's Carbon Cycle Program (NNX08AI86G) to the California Institute of Technology. Part of this work was performed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with NASA. Edited by: J. Brandt.

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