IASI greenhouse gases and aerosols data

Nitrous oxide, the third anthroponegous GHG

N2O, potent greenhouse gas and ozone depleting substance

Nitrous oxide (N2O) is

  • the third most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas, with a radiative forcing potential of 265 to 300 times that of CO2 per mass unit (integrated over 100 years)
  • mostly present in the troposphere, with a lifetime of about 120 years
  • an ozone depleting substance, when it crosses the tropopause and reaches the stratosphere

Anthropogenic contribution to N2O emissions amounts to about 40%

Fig. 1
Global N2O budget 2007-2016, from Tian et al., Nature 2020

 

N2O surface concentration is continuously increasing with time

The surface concentration of nitros oxide increased from a global annual average of 270 ppb (parts per billion) in 1750 to about 338 ppb in 2024.

Global N2O
Graph obtained from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Global Monitoring Laboratory

 

Nitrous oxide has to be included in climate change mitigation strategies

Reducing N2O emissions can be achieved with adapted agricultural policies (that can also lead to increased crop yields) and improved industrial technology, as demonstrated by the decreasing trend of Europe emissions since the late 1980s (Tian et al., Nature 2020).

 

Global N2O data obtained from IASI

Our retrieval algorithm is called Nitrous Oxide Profiling from Infrared Radiances (NOPIR) and

  • uses the data gathered by the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) onboard the EUMETSAT Metop satellite series since end 2006.
  • exploits the N2O ν3 asymmetric stretch vibration mode around 2200 cm-1 (4.5 µm) - selected spectral micro-windows only minimally affected by absorption from other atmospheric gases
  • produces vertical profiles of N2O concentration between 800 and 80hPa, from which a partial column can be calculated.

The first version of the algorithm has been used to produce 10 years of data (2011-2021) from IASI/Metop-A.

The validation shows a very small positive bias of NOPIR with respect to reference instruments (NDACC and TCCON), of 1.8 to 4%.

 

N2O data

The current data is not available for download, because we have discovered that it contains discontinuities/inconsistencies, due to discontinuities/inconsistencies in the IASI data used as input to NOPIR. Therefore, trends extracted from this data would not be useful.

We are working on a new version of the data with a (slightly) improved NOPIR algorithm, applied on fully consistent IASI reprocessed data. When that is ready, the data will be available here.

In the meantime, data can be obtained through personal request.

Contact: Sophie Vandenbussche
E-mail: sophie (at) vandenbussche (at) aeronomie (dot) be

 

References

Algorithm

  • Vandenbussche, S., Langerock, B., Vigouroux, C., Buschmann, M., Deutscher, N. M., Feist, D. G., García, O., Hannigan, J. W., Hase, F., Kivi, R., Kumps, N., Makarova, M., Millet, D. B., Morino, I., Nagahama, T., Notholt, J., Ohyama, H., Ortega, I., Petri, C., Rettinger, M., Schneider, M., Servais, C. P., Sha, M. K., Shiomi, K., Smale, D., Strong, K., Sussmann, R., Té, Y., Velazco, V. A., Vrekoussis, M., Warneke, T., Wells, K. C., Wunch, D., Zhou, M., and Mazière, M. D.: Nitrous Oxide Profiling from Infrared Radiances (NOPIR): Algorithm Description, Application to 10 Years of IASI Observations and Quality Assessment, 30, 2022, https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14081810

Background

  • Canadell, J.G., P.M.S. Monteiro, M.H. Costa, L. Cotrim da Cunha, P.M. Cox, A.V. Eliseev, S. Henson, M. Ishii, S. Jaccard, C. Koven, A. Lohila, P.K. Patra, S. Piao, J. Rogelj, S. Syampungani, S. Zaehle, and K. Zickfeld, 2021: Global Carbon and other Biogeochemical Cycles and Feedbacks. In Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Masson-Delmotte, V., P. Zhai, A. Pirani, S.L. Connors, C. Péan, S. Berger, N. Caud, Y. Chen, L. Goldfarb, M.I. Gomis, M. Huang, K. Leitzell, E. Lonnoy, J.B.R. Matthews, T.K. Maycock, T. Waterfield, O. Yelekçi, R. Yu, and B. Zhou (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, pp. 673–816, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009157896.007
  • Prather, M.J.; Hsu, J.; DeLuca, N.M.; Jackman, C.H.; Oman, L.D.; Douglass, A.R.; Fleming, E.L.; Strahan, S.E.; Steenrod, S.D.; Søvde, O.A.; et al. Measuring and modeling the lifetime of nitrous oxide including its variability. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 2015, 120, 5693-5705. https://doi.org/10.1002/2015JD023267
  • Tian, H.; Xu, R.; Canadell, J.G.; Thompson, R.L.; Winiwarter, W.; Suntharalingam, P.; Davidson, E.A.; Ciais, P.; Jackson, R.B.; Janssens-Maenhout, G.; et al. A comprehensive quantification of global nitrous oxide sources and sinks. Nature 2020, 586, 248-256. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2780-0

Funding acknowledgements

Belgian Science Policy (Belspo) / European Space Agency (ESA) PRODEX program under the HIRS project