A031-0004
Estimating lightning-produced NOx over the Iberian Peninsula by using the DLR TROPOMI-NO2 research product
Tuesday, 8 December 2020
Poster
Francisco J. Perez-Invernon1, Heidi Huntrieser2, Thilo Erbertseder3, Diego G Loyola4, Pieter Valks3, Dale J Allen5, Kenneth E Pickering6, Eric J Bucsela7, Sergio Soler8 and Francisco J. Gordillo-Vazquez9, (1)German Aerospace Center DLR Oberpfaffenhofen, Institut für Physik der Atmosphäre, Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany, (2)German Aerospace Center Oberpfaffenhofen, Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany, (3)German Aerospace Center DLR Oberpfaffenhofen, Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany, (4)German Aerospace Center (DLR), Remote Sensing Technology Institute (IMF), Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany, (5)University of Maryland College Park, College Park, MD, United States, (6)University of Maryland College Park, Atmospheric and Oceanic Science, College Park, MD, United States, (7)SRI International Menlo Park, Menlo Park, CA, United States, (8)Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Granada, Spain, (9)IAA – CSIC, Solar System Department, Granada, Spain
Abstract:
Lightning discharges are one of the main sources of atmospheric NOx, contributing to about 10% of NOx emissions globally and playing an important role in the concentration of ozone and other chemical species in the upper troposphere. Lightning produces between 2 and 8 Tg N per year globally [Schumann and Huntrieser, 2007], which corresponds to 100-400 mol NOx per flash. Recent studies suggest that the production of NOx per flash could depend on the length of the lightning channel, the type of lightning discharge and/or other factors than can vary between different thunderstorms or regions. Despite significant advances achieved by aircraft campaigns and by the improvement of satellites during the last two decades, reducing the uncertainty in the production of NOx by lightning and understanding the factors that influence the production in different thunderstorms is still a challenge.
The TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) is orbiting the Earth from a near-polar, sun-synchronous orbit since October 2017. TROPOMI is equipped with four spectrometers that provide information about the vertical chemical composition of the troposphere with an unprecedented horizontal spatial resolution of about 3.5 x 5.5 km. In this work, we use the DLR-NO2 research product and the DLR cloud operational product to estimate the production of NOx per flash from the Iberian Peninsula. We for the first time ever use chemical measurements from TROPOMI with lightning radio measurements provided by the EUropean Cooperation for LIghtning Detection (EUCLID) and the Earth Network Global Lightning Network (ENGLN), together with lightning optical measurements provided by the space-based Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS). The use of different lightning detection systems allows us to estimate the Detection Efficiency (DE) of each system and to reduce the uncertainty in the production of NOx per flash associated with the inhomogeneous DE in the studied region.
