Retrieval of Atmospheric State variables from GLORIA limb emission spectral images (RASGLO)
Final Report Abstract
The analysis of the data acquired by GLORIA during the ESSence flight and two selected TACTS/ESMVal flights show the possibility of the instrument in atmospheric research enclosing studies of winter polar chemistry and physics (flights on December 16th , 2011 and September 13th , 2012) and trace gases present in the outflow of the Asian monsoon (flight on September 18th, 2012). The GLORIA data retrieval enables visualisation of such challenging trace gases as C2 H6 and CCl4 in time - latitude (longitude) - altitude fields providing information of eventual structures, layers or vertical plums. The data in combination with trajectory and emission tracer calculation allow estimation of sources of the detected pollution and investigation of transport and mixing of the analysed air masses. The emission tracer data show the analysis of the measured pollution origin. The related results, however, point to questions that can be answered only with detailed analysis of the trajectory bundles leading to selected pollution structures. India and Southeast Asia seem to be the main sources of the impurities in the monsoon air. The CLaMS trajectories show that in those regions deep convective injections are a very significant factor for the transport of pollutions into monsoon and further into the UTLS. The events can be precisely defined in the CLaMS simulations, but the quantity of the trace gasses transported on this way and their influence on the atmospheric chemistry still have to be investigated. The next steps in the analysis of the presented TACTS/ESMVal GLORIA data consider precise localisation of the origin of the mixing ratio enhancements of HNO3, C2 H6 , PAN and CCl4 shown in previous section. For this purpose selected trajectories of similar characteristics (e.g. origin, altitudes on the trajectory path) are analysed in bundles. Beside the pollution source identification, the following issues are investigated: • The quality of PAN retrieval revision due to the ambiguous enhancements observed at 13 km altitude. • Determination of the trace gas concentrations at the pollution sources from the GLORIA measurements, CLaMS backward trajectories and defined lifetimes. • Significance of the typhoons circulation for the measured monsoon outflow trace gas structures. • Identification of the deep convective injections in CLaMS calculations and their influence on the Asian monsoon chemical composition. The ESMVaL/TACTS flights not included in the report provide data for research on further interesting scientific subjects like biomass burning emissions in Africa, mixing and transport in extratropical UTLS or pollutions over Europe. These points will be analysed subsequently.
