Assessing snow extent data sets over North America to inform and improve trace gas retrievals from solar backscatter.

ABSTRACT: Accurate representation of surface reflectivity is essential to tropospheric trace gas retrievals from solar backscatter observations. Surface snow cover presents a significant challenge due to its variability and thus snow-covered scenes are often omitted from retrieval data sets; however, the high reflectance of snow is potentially advantageous for trace gas retrievals. We first examine the implications of surface snow on retrievals from the upcoming TEMPO geostationary instrument for North America. We use a radiative transfer model to examine how an increase in surface reflectivity due to snow cover changes the sensitivity of satellite retrievals to NO2 in the lower troposphere. We find that a substantial fraction (>50%) of the TEMPO field of regard can be snow covered in January, and t

SUBMITTER: Cooper MJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6235450 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature