Remote sensing of atmospheric boundary layer composition using infrared satellite observations

• Main Author: Bauduin, Sophie
• Other Authors: Coheur, Pierre, De Decker, Yannick, Vander Auwera, Jean, Van Eck, Sophie, August, Thomas, Crevoisier, Cyril
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Universite Libre de Bruxelles 2016
• Subjects: Télédétection; Sciences exactes et naturelles; Sciences de la terre et du cosmos; Air pollution; Vertical sensitivity; Pollution de l'air; Sensibilité verticale; SO2; CO; Satellite remote sensing; Radiative transfer; Transfert radiatif; Norilsk; norilsk
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/239053; https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/239053/3/Contents.pdf; https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/239053/5/contratBauduin.pdf; https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/239053/4/PhD_thesis_full.pdf

Measuring the composition of the planetary boundary layer is essential for monitoring pollutants and for understanding their impact on environment and health. Nadir satellite remote sensing is particularly appealing to sound this part of the atmosphere, but is however challenging because pollutants concentrations are generally weak and confined in a small part of the atmospheric column. Among the sounders currently in orbit, those operating in the thermal infrared have usually their maximum sensitivity in the mid-troposphere, and are thought to be inadequate to measure the near-surface atmospheric composition. Their sensitivity to this part of the atmosphere is indeed generally limited by low temperature contrast (called thermal contrast) between the ground and the air above it. Shortly before the beginning of this PhD, this has however been challenged with different studies, which have shown the possibility to measure air pollution with thermal infrared sounders in case of high thermal contrast conditions. This was especially demonstrated with the measurement of ammonia global distribution using the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI). This work aims at fully exploring the capabilities of thermal infrared sounders to sound the near-surface atmospheric composition. It mainly focuses on the observations of the IASI instrument, and addresses the following questions: where and when is IASI sensitive to the near-surface atmosphere? How large and how variable is the sensitivity to near-surface pollutants? What are the parameters that drive this variability? The answers to these questions are looked at for two pollutants: sulphur dioxide (SO2) and carbon monoxide (CO), and are obtained through a series of different analyses. SO2 is the first constituent on which this work focuses. The retrieval of its near-surface concentration is first of all attempted in an area surrounding the industrial area of Norilsk. This region, well-known for the extraction of heavy metals and its extremely high levels of ...