Relationship between column-density and surface mixing ratio: Statistical analysis of O sub(3) and NO sub(2) data from the July 2011 Maryland DISCOVER-AQ mission

• Published in: Atmospheric environment (1994) 2014-08, Vol.92, p.429-441
• Main Authors: Flynn, Clare M, Pickering, Kenneth E, Crawford, James H, Lamsal, Lok, Krotkov, Nickolay, Herman, Jay, Weinheimer, Andrew, Chen, Gao, Liu, Xiong, Szykman, James, Tsay, Si-Chee, Loughner, Christopher, Hains, Jennifer, Lee, Pius, Dickerson, Russell R, Stehr, Jeffrey W, Brent, Lacey
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1352-2310
• DOI: 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2014.04.041

To investigate the ability of column (or partial column) information to represent surface air quality, results of linear regression analyses between surface mixing ratio data and column abundances for O sub(3) and NO sub(2) are presented for the July 2011 Maryland deployment of the DISCOVER-AQ mission. Data collected by the P-3B aircraft, ground-based Pandora spectrometers, Aura/OMI satellite instrument, and simulations for July 2011 from the CMAQ air quality model during this deployment provide a large and varied data set, allowing this problem to be approached from multiple perspectives. O sub(3) columns typically exhibited a statistically significant and high degree of correlation with surface data (R super(2) > 0.64) in the P-3B data set, a moderate degree of correlation (0.16 < R super(2) < 0.64) in the CMAQ data set, and a low degree of correlation (R super(2) < 0.16) in the Pandora and OMI data sets. NO sub(2) columns typically exhibited a low to moderate degree of correlation with surface data in each data set. The results of linear regression analyses for O sub(3) exhibited smaller errors relative to the observations than NO sub(2) regressions. These results suggest that O sub(3) partial column observations from future satellite instruments with sufficient sensitivity to the lower troposphere can be meaningful for surface air quality analysis.