Quantifying spatial and seasonal variability in atmospheric ammonia with in situ and space-based observations

Abstract

Ammonia plays an important role in many biogeochemical processes, yet atmospheric mixing ratios are not well known. Recently, methods have been developed for retrieving NH 3 from space-based observations, but they have not been compared to in situ measurements. We have conducted a field campaign combining co-located surface measurements and satellite special observations from the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES). Our study includes 25 surface monitoring sites spanning 350 km across eastern North Carolina, a region with large seasonal and spatial variability in NH 3. From the TES spectra, we retrieve a NH 3 representative volume mixing ratio (RVMR), and we restrict our analysis to times when the region of the atmosphere observed by TES is representative of the surface measurement. We find that the TES NH 3 RVMR qualitatively captures the seasonal and spatial variability found in eastern North Carolina. Both surface measurements and TES NH 3 show a strong correspondence with the number of livestock facilities within 10 km of the observation. Furthermore, we find that TES NH 3 RVMR captures the month-to-month variability present in the surface observations. The high correspondence with in situ measurements and vast spatial coverage make TES NH 3 RVMR a valuable tool for understanding regional and global NH 3 fluxes. Copyright © 2011 by the American Geophysical Union.