Measurement of Air Pollution from Satellites (MAPS) 1994 Correlative Atmospheric Carbon Monoxide Mixing Ratios

Digital Data

Investigators

Paul Novelli and Ken Masarie

DOI

10.3334/CDIAC/atg.db1020

This subdirectory contains a database contributed by Paul Novelli [NOAA Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory (CMDL), Boulder, Colorado] and Ken Masarie [Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado]. The database offers select carbon monoxide (CO) mixing ratios from eleven field and aircraft measurement programs around the world.

Carbon monoxide mixing ratios in the middle troposphere have been examined for short periods of time by using the Measurement of Air Pollution from Satellites (MAPS) instrument. MAPS measures CO from a space platform, using gas filter correlation radiometry. During the 1981 and 1984 MAPS flights, measurement validation was attempted by comparing space-based measurements of CO to those made in the middle troposphere from aircraft. Before the 1994 MAPS flights aboard the space shuttle Endeavour, a correlative measurement team was assembled to provide the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) with results of their CO field measurement programs during the April and October shuttle missions. To maximize the usefulness of these correlative data, team members agreed to participate in an intercomparison of CO measurements.

The correlative data presented in this database provide an internally consistent, ground-based picture of CO in the lower atmosphere during Spring and Fall 1994. The data show the regional importance of two CO sources: fossil-fuel burning in urbanized areas and biomass burning in regions in the Southern Hemisphere.