Using Satellite Remote Sensing and Modelling for Insights into N02 Air Pollution and NO2 Emissions

Nitrogen oxides (NO(x)) are key actors in air quality and climate change. Satellite remote sensing of tropospheric NO2 has developed rapidly with enhanced spatial and temporal resolution since initial observations in 1995. We have developed an improved algorithm and retrieved tropospheric NO2 columns from Ozone Monitoring Instrument. Column observations of tropospheric NO2 from the nadir-viewing satellite sensors contain large contributions from the boundary layer due to strong enhancement of NO2 in the boundary layer. We infer ground-level NO2 concentrations from the OMI satellite instrument which demonstrate significant agreement with in-situ surface measurements. We examine how NO2 columns measured by satellite, ground-level NO2 derived from satellite, and NO(x) emissions obtained from bottom-up inventories relate to world's urban population. We perform inverse modeling analysis of NO2 measurements from OMI to estimate "top-down" surface NO(x) emissions, which are used to evaluate and improve "bottom-up" emission inventories. We use NO2 column observations from OMI and the relationship between NO2 columns and NO(x) emissions from a GEOS-Chem model simulation to estimate the annual change in bottom-up NO(x) emissions. The emission updates offer an improved estimate of NO(x) that are critical to our understanding of air quality, acid deposition, and climate change.