Sub-hourly Variation of Tropospheric Ozone Profiles Measured by the Huntsville DIAL Shi Kuang 1*, John Burris 2, M. J. Newchurch 1*, Steve Johnson 3, and.

Sub-hourly Variation of Tropospheric Ozone Profiles Measured by the Huntsville DIAL

Shi Kuang1*, John Burris2, M. J. Newchurch1*, Steve Johnson3, and Stephanie Long4

1 Atmospheric Science Department, University of Alabama in Huntsville, 320 Sparkman Dr., Huntsville, Alabama 35805, USA

2NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 694, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771, USA

3NASA-Marshall Space Flight Center, Office Code VP61, Huntsville, Alabama 35812, USA

4Department of Physics, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, Alabama 35805, USA

The Team

Photo: Front: (left to right) Whitney Guerin, Stephanie Long, Shi Kuang. Back: (left to right) John Burris, Mike Newchurch, Steve Johnson

Outline

• Instrument description.• Aerosol corrections.• Validation against balloon sondes.• Data• Conclusions.

Dye Laser

The Instrument

Instrument Characterization

• Telescope’s performance validated.• PMT response function and SIN correction

determined. • LED test - quantified electronic system

response. Established system reliability.• Mini receiver installed.

• LICEL (analog/photon counting) units replaced MCS boards (photon counting).

Model

Glued signal with SIB correction

Glued signal w/o SIB correction

SIB fit

Aerosol model

Calculated aerosol

O3 model

O3 w/o aerosol correction

O3 with aerosol correction

ModelS=40, η=0.5S=40, η=0S=40, η=1S=20, η=0.5S=60, η=0.5

Typical statistical errors for day and nighttime ozone retrievals on the high and low altitude channels

Validation of DIAL ozone using balloon sondes

(8AM)

All sondes are launched at 1pm except one at 8am.

Low channel works a little better than high channel. High channel has a oscillation above 6. 285 laser doesn’t have power. High statistical error and SIB error at 7-8 km relatively.

The mean and standard deviation of the ozone retrieval in last slide.

August 9-10, 2008

August 17-18, 2008

Oct. 5, 2008 Nighttime Ozone Enhancement

Similar aerosol and O3 time-height structures suggest a same pollutant source.

8-hour peak Air Quality Index for ozone at Mississippi/Alabama region in October 2008

This was Sat.!

Horizontal Transport

24-hr Backtrajectories at 500, 1500 and 4000m for the nighttime ozone enhancement event observed in Huntsville on Oct. 5, 2008.

October 18, 2008

Conclusions

• RAPCD DIAL instrument is retrieving excellent lower tropospheric data.

• Retrievals with aerosol correction have a verified accurate of 5-20% between 1-8 km.

• 24-hr 10-min curtain plots shows many interesting trop O3 features in time and space.