NO2 pollution trends 1996-2010 : a multi-satellite approach
Résumé
Nitrogen oxides (NOx) are air pollutants emerging mainly from fossil fuel combustion, i.e. traffic and industry. Apart from being hazardous to human health, they contribute to acid rain and play a major role in tropospheric ozone formation. While their concentration can most accurately be monitored using ground-based in-situ measurements, remote sensing techniques in general and satellite instruments in particular have proven invaluable to obtain long and consistent time series with global coverage. They facilitate studying the temporal evolution of atmospheric pollutants like NO2, as they allow to apply identical measurement techniques to all investigated regions, yielding comparable results. In this study, we present an assessment of the evolution of tropospheric NO2 for the 1996-2010 time period. Satellite measurements from the GOME, SCIAMACHY, OMI, and GOME2 instruments will be used in an ensemble approach to investigate trends in tropospheric NO2. The focus will be on large urban agglomerations, where air quality is of most importance for human health. These observations will be compared to NO2 columns derived from the CHIMERE model as well as to ground-based measurements.