Carbon dioxide retrieval from TanSat observations and validation with TCCON measurements

Abstract

In this study we present the retrieval of the column-averaged dry air mole fraction of carbon dioxide (XCO2) from the TanSat observations using the ACOS (Atmospheric CO2 Observations from Space) algorithm. The XCO2 product has been validated with collocated ground-based measurements from the Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON) for 2 years of TanSat data from 2017 to 2018. Based on the correlation of the XCO2 error over land with goodness of fit in three spectral bands at 0.76, 1.61 and 2.06 μm, we applied an a posteriori bias correction to TanSat retrievals. For overpass averaged results, XCO2 retrievals show a standard deviation (SD) of ~2.45 ppm and a positive bias of ~0.27 ppm compared to collocated TCCON sites. The validation also shows a relatively higher positive bias and variance against TCCON over high-latitude regions. Three cases to evaluate TanSat target mode retrievals are investigated, including one field campaign at Dunhuang with measurements by a greenhouse gas analyzer deployed on an unmanned aerial vehicle and two cases with measurements by a ground-based Fourier-transform spectrometer in Beijing. The results show the retrievals of all footprints, except footprint-6, have relatively low bias (within ~2 ppm). In addition, the orbital XCO2 distributions over Australia and Northeast China between TanSat and the second Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO-2) on 20 April 2017 are compared. It shows that the mean XCO2 from TanSat is slightly lower than that of OCO-2 with an average difference of ~0.85 ppm. A reasonable agreement in XCO2 distribution is found over Australia and Northeast China between TanSat and OCO-2.