Upgrade and automation of the JPL Table Mountain Facility tropospheric ozone lidar (TMTOL) for near-ground ozone profiling and satellite validation

Abstract

Abstract. As part of international efforts to monitor air quality, several satellite missions such as the Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) were deployed and others, like Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring Pollution (TEMPO), are planned for the near future. In support of the validation of these missions, major upgrades to the tropospheric ozone lidar located at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Table Mountain Facility (TMF) were recently performed. These modifications include the full automation of the system, which now allows unattended measurements during frequent satellite overpasses, and a new receiver that extends the measurement capabilities of the system down to 100 m above surface. The automation led to the systematic operation of the lidar during daily TROPOMI overpasses, providing more than 139 reference profiles since January 2018. Ozone profiles retrieved using the new lidar receiver were compared to ozonesonde profiles obtained from a co-located tethered balloon. An agreement of about 5 % with the ozonesonde down to an altitude range of 100 m a.g.l. was observed. Furthermore, the stability of the receiver configuration was investigated. Comparisons between the lowest point retrieved by the lidar and a co-located surface ozone photometer showed no sign of drift over a 2-month test period and an agreement better than 10 %. Finally, measurements from a 24 h intensive measurement period during a stratospheric intrusion event showed good agreement with two free-flying ozonesondes. These comparisons revealed localized differences between sonde and lidar, possibly owing to the differing vertical resolutions (between 52 and 380 m for lidar and about 100 m for the sonde).

NASA GEOS Composition Forecast Modeling System GEOS‐CF v1.0: Stratospheric Composition

“…For this study, observations from the NASA JPL Table Mountain Facility (TMF) tropospheric O 3 lidar (TMTOL; McDermid et al., 2002 ), located in the San Gabriel Mountains near Los Angeles, California (34.38°N, 117.68°W) at an elevation of 2,285 m above sea level (asl) are used. This system has the capability to conduct continuous observations for multiple hours or days (Chouza et al., 2019 ) providing O 3 measurements from 100 m above ground level (agl) to the tropopause. For a qualitative comparison to GEOS‐CF for the case study in Section 6.3 , the lidar data is averaged hourly with 30 m vertical resolution.…”

Impact of the COVID‐19 Economic Downturn on Tropospheric Ozone Trends: An Uncertainty Weighted Data Synthesis for Quantifying Regional Anomalies Above Western North America and Europe

“…However, during infrequent field campaigns of limited duration the launch frequency was increased to several times per week or even daily, for example, Boulder had increased launches during the spring of 2020 to monitor the potential impact of the COVID‐19 economic downturn The lidar operated at Table Mountain Facility (TMF, California) produced ozone profiles with varying frequency (typically 2–4 profiles per week) from 2002 to 2018. In order to validate the satellite retrievals from the Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI), TMF has operated the lidar during the daily TROPOMI overpasses since January 2018 (Chouza et al., 2019 ). Since TMF is a high elevation site (2285 m), we only consider the TMF data above 600 hPa in this study The weekly ozonesonde operation at Kelowna, British Columbia started in November 2003 and ended in June 2017.…”

“…The lidar operated at Table Mountain Facility (TMF, California) produced ozone profiles with varying frequency (typically 2–4 profiles per week) from 2002 to 2018. In order to validate the satellite retrievals from the Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI), TMF has operated the lidar during the daily TROPOMI overpasses since January 2018 (Chouza et al., 2019 ). Since TMF is a high elevation site (2285 m), we only consider the TMF data above 600 hPa in this study…”

The impact of Los Angeles Basin pollution and stratospheric intrusions on the surrounding San Gabriel Mountains as seen by surface measurements, lidar, and numerical models

“…While somewhat limited by topography and meteorological conditions, long-range transport of LA Basin pollution has been identified as a source of high-ozone events around the Mojave Desert and other locations further away (Langford et al, 2010;VanCuren, 2015). Among the processes driving the transport of LA Basin pollution, we can find low-level transport through several passes found between the mountains that surround the LA Basin as well as transport over these mountains and injection in the free troposphere caused by the upslope flow mechanism, also referred as the mountain chimney effect (Lu and Turco, 1996;Langford et al, 2010;De Wekker and Kossmann, 2015). While models and short-term measurements have been typically used to study these transport processes, no consistent long-term measurements have been conducted to quantify the frequency of these processes and investigate to which extent limited resolution models used for air quality forecasting reproduce them.…”