In September of 2011, measurements for the Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON) began at Reunion Island (Ile de La Reunion, 55°E, 20°S). The island is located East of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, it undergoes strong influences from biomass burning in Africa and Madagascar during the months September to December. Since 2002, we have been performing remote-sensing measurements for the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC) using a high-resolution Fourier-transform infrared spectrometer at the island, and now it is also home to the fourth operational TCCON observatory in the Southern Hemisphere. The TCCON observatory is located on the campus of the Universite de La Reunion in St. Denis, next to the ocean. The station is operated remotely from the Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy in Brussels, with technical support from the Laboratoire de l'Atmosphere et des cyclones at La Reunion. The observatory houses a high-resolution Bruker 125/HR Fourier-transform infrared spectrometer (operating in the near-infrared for the TCCON), and a home-built solar tracker. The same infrastructure is also used for measurements for the NDACC (operating in the mid-infrared). Our remote sensing measurements are supplemented by in-situ measurements with a PICARRO system at the same site. In this presentation, we show the first results of the TCCON measurements of the total columns of CO2 and CH4 from Reunion Island.

Reunion Island (21° S, 55° E), situated in the Indian Ocean at about 800 km east of Madagascar, is appropriately located to monitor the outflow of biomass burning pollution from Southern Africa and Madagascar, in the case of short-lived compounds, and from other Southern Hemispheric landmasses such as South America, in the case of longer-lived species. Ground-based Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) solar absorption observations are sensitive to a large number of biomass burning products. We present in this work the FTIR retrieval strategies, suitable for very humid sites such as Reunion Island, for hydrogen cyanide (HCN), ethane (C2H6), acetylene (C2H2), methanol (CH3OH), and formic acid (HCOOH). We provide their total columns time-series obtained from the measurements during August–October 2004, May–October 2007, and May 2009–December 2010. We show that biomass burning explains a large part of the observed seasonal and interannual variability of the chemical species. The correlations between the daily mean total columns of each of the species and those of CO, also measured with our FTIR spectrometer at Reunion Island, are very good from August to November (R ≥ 0.86). This allows us to derive, for that period, the following enhancement ratios with respect to CO: 0.0047, 0.0078, 0.0020, 0.012, and 0.0046 for HCN, C2H6, C2H2, CH3OH, and HCOOH, respectively. The HCN ground-based data are compared to the chemical transport model GEOS-Chem, while the data for the other species are compared to the IMAGESv2 model. We show that using the HCN/CO ratio derived from our measurements (0.0047) in GEOS-Chem reduces the underestimation of the modeled HCN columns compared with the FTIR measurements. The comparisons between IMAGESv2 and the long-lived species C2H6 and C2H2 indicate that the biomass burning emissions used in the model (from the GFED3 inventory) are probably underestimated in the late September–October period for all years of measurements, and especially in 2004. The comparisons with the short-lived species, CH3OH and HCOOH, with lifetimes of around 5 days, suggest that the emission underestimation in late September–October 2004, occurs more specifically in the Southeastern Africa-Madagascar region. The very good correlation of CH3OH and HCOOH with CO suggests that, despite the dominance of the biogenic source of these compounds on the global scale, biomass burning is their major source at Reunion Island between August and November.

Formaldehyde (HCHO) columns have been retrieved from ground-based Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) campaign measurements in 2004 and 2007 and from UV-Visible MAX-DOAS measurements in 2004–2005 at the NDACC site of Réunion Island (21° S, 55° E). The FTIR and MAX-DOAS daily mean formaldehyde total columns are intercompared in their common measurement period, from August to October 2004. The ground-based data are also compared to correlative SCIAMACHY data. The comparisons account for the vertical sensitivity differences of the data sets, by including their respective averaging kernels. Complete error budgets are also presented. The FTIR and MAX-DOAS daily mean total columns agree very well: no significant bias is observed and the standard deviation of the comparisons is only 8%. Both FTIR and MAX-DOAS HCHO total columns are in good agreement with SCIAMACHY values in the 2004–2005 period, with standard deviations of 21% and 31%, respectively. The same seasonal cycle is observed by the different instruments, with a minimum in austral winter and a maximum in February–March. The FTIR and MAX-DOAS data are confronted with HCHO columns calculated by a global CTM, the IMAGES model. The model underestimates the HCHO columns by 23–29% in comparison with FTIR, and by 15% in comparison with DOAS. This bias might have multiple causes, including an underestimation of OH concentrations in the model (as indicated by a sensitivity study using prescribed OH fields) and/or an underestimated contribution of large-scale transport of HCHO precursors from Madagascar. The latter hypothesis is comforted by the large observed day-to-day variability of HCHO columns, and by the observation that the peak values of FTIR columns can often be associated with free tropospheric transport patterns from source regions over Madagascar to Réunion Island, according to simulations performed with the Lagrangian particle dispersion model FLEXPART.

Ground-based high spectral resolution Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) solar absorption spectroscopy is a powerful remote sensing technique to obtain information on the total column abundances and on the vertical distribution of various constituents in the atmosphere. This work presents results from two FTIR measurement campaigns in 2002 and 2004, held at Ile de La Réunion (21° S, 55° E). These campaigns represent the first FTIR observations carried out at a southern (sub)tropical site. They serve the initiation of regular, long-term FTIR monitoring at this site in the near future. To demonstrate the capabilities of the FTIR measurements at this location for tropospheric and stratospheric monitoring, a detailed report is given on the retrieval strategy, information content and corresponding full error budget evaluation for ozone (O3), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), carbon monoxide (CO), ethane (C2H6), hydrogen chloride (HCl), hydrogen fluoride (HF) and nitric acid (HNO3) total and partial column retrievals. Moreover, we have made a thorough comparison of the capabilities at sea level altitude (St.-Denis) and at 2200 m a.s.l. (Maïdo). It is proved that the performances of the technique are such that the atmospheric variability can be observed, at both locations and in distinct altitude layers. Comparisons with literature and with correlative data from ozone sonde and satellite (i.e., ACE-FTS, HALOE and MOPITT) measurements are given to confirm the results. Despite the short time series available at present, we have been able to detect the seasonal variation of CO in the biomass burning season, as well as the impact of particular biomass burning events in Africa and Madagascar on the atmospheric composition above Ile de La Réunion. We also show that differential measurements between St.-Denis and Maïdo provide useful information about the concentrations in the boundary layer.

Ile de La Reunion is a complementary site in the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC), situated in the southern tropics, at 21°S, 55°E. In support of a better understanding of atmospheric chemistry and physics above tropical regions, we have implemented new ground-based MAX-DOAS (multi-axis DOAS) and FTIR (Fourier transform infrared) observations at this site, on a campaign basis since 2002. At present, we have data from 2002 (month of October), 2004 (August to October) and 2007 (end of May until the end of October). Additional campaigns are planned until the availability of a new infrastructure for permanent observations at the Maido (~ 2000 masl), around 2010. Here, we report on the available time series for a number of tropospheric species (CO, H2CO and CH4,) and stratospheric halogen species, comparisons between MAX-DOAS and FTIR data of H2CO, and comparisons of ground-based and satellite data.

In order to make long-term monitoring of the atmospheric composition using commercial Bruker Fourier transform spectrometers more cost effective, a system called BARCOS has been developed. The system enables one to perform the operation of the spectrometric atmospheric observations in a remotely controlled or autonomous way, without human presence at the measuring site. Several observation geometries are foreseen, including solar and lunar absorption spectrometry. BARCOS is built using existing commercial hardware and software components, including the Bruker software for the operation of the spectrometer (OPUS) and runs in a personal computer (Microsoft) environment. It includes a small meteorological station. It is a flexible system, allowing manual interventions at any time. To run BARCOS effectively, the only prerequisite is that internet access is available at the site of operation. This article describes the BARCOS system hardware and software configurations.

Get PDF Email Share Share with Facebook Tweet This Post on reddit Share with LinkedIn Add to CiteULike Add to Mendeley Add to BibSonomy Get Citation Copy Citation Text E. Neefs, F. Scolas, M. De Mazière, B. Barret, T. Stephen, and T. Hawat, "The BARCOS system for automatic and remote control of a Bruker FTS for solar absorption measurements from ground," in Fourier Transform Spectroscopy, A. Sawchuk, ed., Vol. 84 of OSA Trends in Optics and Photonics (Optica Publishing Group, 2003), paper FMD25. Export Citation BibTex Endnote (RIS) HTML Plain Text Citation alert Save article