Articles | Volume 18, issue 3
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-621-2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-621-2025
Model evaluation paper
 | 
05 Feb 2025
Model evaluation paper |  | 05 Feb 2025

Accurate space-based NOx emission estimates with the flux divergence approach require fine-scale model information on local oxidation chemistry and profile shapes

Felipe Cifuentes, Henk Eskes, Enrico Dammers, Charlotte Bryan, and Folkert Boersma

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This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Measurement Techniques (AMT).
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Cited articles

Allen, D., Pickering, K. E., Bucsela, E., Geffen, J. V., Lapierre, J., Koshak, W., and Eskes, H.: Observations of Lightning NOx Production From Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument Case Studies Over the United States, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 126, e2020JD034174, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JD034174, 2021. a
Beirle, S., Platt, U., Wenig, M., and Wagner, T.: Weekly cycle of NO2 by GOME measurements: a signature of anthropogenic sources, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 3, 2225–2232, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-3-2225-2003, 2003. a
Beirle, S., Boersma, K. F., Platt, U., Lawrence, M. G., and Wagner, T.: Megacity Emissions and Lifetimes of Nitrogen Oxides Probed from Space, Science, 333, 1737–1739, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1207824, 2011. a
Beirle, S., Borger, C., Dörner, S., Li, A., Hu, Z., Liu, F., Wang, Y., and Wagner, T.: Pinpointing nitrogen oxide emissions from space, Science Advances, 5, eaax9800, https://doi.org/10.1126/SCIADV.AAX9800, 2019. a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h
Beirle, S., Borger, C., Dörner, S., Eskes, H., Kumar, V., de Laat, A., and Wagner, T.: Catalog of NOx emissions from point sources as derived from the divergence of the NO2 flux for TROPOMI, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 13, 2995–3012, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-2995-2021, 2021. a, b, c, d
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Short summary
We tested the capability of the flux divergence approach (FDA) to reproduce known NOx emissions using synthetic NO2 satellite column retrievals from high-resolution model simulations. The FDA accurately reproduced NOx emissions when column observations were limited to the boundary layer and when the variability of the NO2 lifetime, the NO: NO2 ratio, and NO2 profile shapes were correctly modeled. This introduces strong model dependency, reducing the simplicity of the original FDA formulation.
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