Validation of methane and carbon monoxide from Sentinel-5 Precursor using TCCON and NDACC-IRWG stations

The Sentinel-5 Precursor (S5P) mission with the TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) on board has been measuring solar radiation backscattered by the Earth's atmosphere and surface since its launch on 13 October 2017. In this paper, we present for the first time the S5P operational methane (CH4) and carbon monoxide (CO) products' validation results covering a period of about 3 years using global Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON) and Infrared Working Group of the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC-IRWG) network data, accounting for a priori alignment and smoothing uncertainties in the validation, and testing the sensitivity of validation results towards the application of advanced co-location criteria. We found that the S5P standard and bias-corrected CH4 data over land surface for the recommended quality filtering fulfil the mission requirements. The systematic difference of the bias-corrected total column-averaged dry air mole fraction of methane (XCH4) data with respect to TCCON data is −0.26±0.56 % in comparison to −0.68±0.74 % for the standard XCH4 data, with a correlation of 0.6 for most stations. The bias shows a seasonal dependence. We found that the S5P CO data over all surfaces for the recommended quality filtering generally fulfil the missions requirements, with a few exceptions, which are mostly due to co-location mismatches and limited availability of data. The systematic difference between the S5P total column-averaged dry air mole fraction of carbon monoxide (XCO) and the TCCON data is on average 9.22±3.45 % (standard TCCON XCO) and 2.45±3.38 % (unscaled TCCON XCO). We found that the systematic difference between the S5P CO column and NDACC CO column (excluding two outlier stations) is on average 6.5±3.54 %. We found a correlation of above 0.9 for most TCCON and NDACC stations. The study shows the high quality of S5P CH4 and CO data by validating the products against reference global TCCON and NDACC stations covering a wide range of latitudinal bands, atmospheric conditions and surface conditions.

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Author Sha, Mahesh Kumar
Langerock, Bavo
Blavier, Jean-François L.
Blumenstock, Thomas
Borsdorff, Tobias
Buschmann, Matthias
Dehn, Angelika
De Mazière, Martine
Deutscher, Nicholas M.
Feist, Dietrich G.
García, Omaira E.
Griffith, David W. T.
Grutter, Michel
Hannigan, James W.
Hase, Frank
Heikkinen, Pauli
Hermans, Christian
Iraci, Laura T.
Jeseck, Pascal
Jones, Nicholas
Kivi, Rigel
Kumps, Nicolas
Landgraf, Jochen
Lorente, Alba
Mahieu, Emmanuel
Makarova, Maria V.
Mellqvist, Johan
Metzger, Jean-Marc
Morino, Isamu
Nagahama, Tomoo
Notholt, Justus
Ohyama, Hirofumi
Ortega, Ivan
Palm, Mathias
Petri, Christof
Pollard, David F.
Rettinger, Markus
Robinson, John
Roche, Sébastien
Roehl, Coleen M.
Röhling, Amelie N.
Rousogenous, Constantina
Schneider, Matthias
Shiomi, Kei
Smale, Dan
Stremme, Wolfgang
Strong, Kimberly
Sussmann, Ralf
Té, Yao
Uchino, Osamu
Velazco, Voltaire A.
Vigouroux, Corinne
Vrekoussis, Mihalis
Wang, Pucai
Warneke, Thorsten
Wizenberg, Tyler
Wunch, Debra
Yamanouchi, Shoma
Yang, Yang
Zhou, Minqiang
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2021-09-28T00:00:00
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Topic Category geoscientificInformation
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Metadata Date 2023-08-18T18:15:18.217804
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:24725
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Sha, Mahesh Kumar, Langerock, Bavo, Blavier, Jean-François L., Blumenstock, Thomas, Borsdorff, Tobias, Buschmann, Matthias, Dehn, Angelika, De Mazière, Martine, Deutscher, Nicholas M., Feist, Dietrich G., García, Omaira E., Griffith, David W. T., Grutter, Michel, Hannigan, James W., Hase, Frank, Heikkinen, Pauli, Hermans, Christian, Iraci, Laura T., Jeseck, Pascal, Jones, Nicholas, Kivi, Rigel, Kumps, Nicolas, Landgraf, Jochen, Lorente, Alba, Mahieu, Emmanuel, Makarova, Maria V., Mellqvist, Johan, Metzger, Jean-Marc, Morino, Isamu, Nagahama, Tomoo, Notholt, Justus, Ohyama, Hirofumi, Ortega, Ivan, Palm, Mathias, Petri, Christof, Pollard, David F., Rettinger, Markus, Robinson, John, Roche, Sébastien, Roehl, Coleen M., Röhling, Amelie N., Rousogenous, Constantina, Schneider, Matthias, Shiomi, Kei, Smale, Dan, Stremme, Wolfgang, Strong, Kimberly, Sussmann, Ralf, Té, Yao, Uchino, Osamu, Velazco, Voltaire A., Vigouroux, Corinne, Vrekoussis, Mihalis, Wang, Pucai, Warneke, Thorsten, Wizenberg, Tyler, Wunch, Debra, Yamanouchi, Shoma, Yang, Yang, Zhou, Minqiang. (2021). Validation of methane and carbon monoxide from Sentinel-5 Precursor using TCCON and NDACC-IRWG stations. UCAR/NCAR - Library. http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7765jrr. Accessed 26 June 2025.

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