Temporal variation of urban NO x concentration in India during the past decade as observed from space

Scanning Imaging Absorption Spectrometer for Atmospheric Cartography (SCIAMACHY) tropospheric NO 2 retrievals (average during March-April-May 2003-2006) were used to locate the major urban sources of NO 2 in India. To show that tropospheric NO 2 measurements from satellites can provide useful inform...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of remote sensing 2011-02, Vol.32 (3), p.849-861
Main Authors: Ghude, Sachin D., Kulkarni, Pavan S., Kulkarni, Santosh H., Fadnavis, S., Van Der A, R. J.
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:Scanning Imaging Absorption Spectrometer for Atmospheric Cartography (SCIAMACHY) tropospheric NO 2 retrievals (average during March-April-May 2003-2006) were used to locate the major urban sources of NO 2 in India. To show that tropospheric NO 2 measurements from satellites can provide useful information on day-to-day changes in urban NO 2 concentration, we compared 2-year (October 2004-October 2006) records of surface air NO 2 concentrations obtained at one of the measurement sites in Delhi to retrievals of tropospheric NO 2 columns from Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) observations. The quality of correlation between satellite observations at the urban scale and surface measurements (45%) provided confidence to investigate the temporal changes in the local emission over major urban locations. Combined Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME) and SCIAMACHY measurements for the period March 1996-December 2007 were used to compute the trends over the selected urban locations. A statistical analysis was applied to derive trends for this period over these locations. The time series of the monthly NO 2 columns for these 11 years were fitted with a linear function superposed on an annual seasonal cycle. We found a statistically significant increase in tropospheric NO 2 levels over the major urban cities in India. Notable urban locations of positive trends were found to be the cities where the urban population is growing rapidly.
ISSN:0143-1161
1366-5901
DOI:10.1080/01431161.2010.517797