- 1University of Bremen, Institute of Environmental Physics, Bremen, Germany (kakrau@iup.physik.uni-bremen.de)
- 2Institute of Environmental Physics Heidelberg, University of Heidelberg, Germany
- 3Satellite Remote Sensing Group, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany
- 4University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
- 5National Research Council (CNR), Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (ISAC), Bologna, Italy
- 6Instituto de Física, Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay
- 7Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (BIRA-IASB), Brussels, Belgium
- 8Department of Mathematics, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China
- 9Department of Environmental & Energy Engineering, University of Suwon, Hwaseong‐si, Republic of Korea
- 10Department of Physics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
- 11Anhui Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Hefei, China
- 12Laboratory of Atmospheric Physics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
- 13Atmospheric Research and Instrumentation Branch, National Institute for Aerospace Technology (INTA), Madrid, Spain
- 14Rutherford Appleton Laboratory Space, Harwell Oxford, United Kingdom
- 15University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China
- 16Airyx GmbH, Heidelberg, Germany
Glyoxal (CHOCHO) is an intermediate product of the oxidation of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and has anthropogenic, biogenic and pyrogenic sources. It is an indicator of formation of secondary organic aerosols in the atmosphere and plays a role in the photochemical reactions of ozone in the troposphere. Additionally, at high concentrations glyoxal is harmful for humans. The lifetime of glyoxal in the atmosphere is short (a few hours) and it is removed from the atmosphere by photolysis, oxidation by OH, and deposition. Due to the different sources and short lifetime of glyoxal, its abundance in the atmosphere can vary between several parts per trillion (ppt) e.g., in remote parts of the oceans, to parts per billion (ppb) in the presence of strong sources, like biomass burning, industrial processes, fossil fuel combustion or over tropical rainforest regions.
Multi-Axis Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy (MAX-DOAS) instruments are capable of measuring glyoxal, but the retrieval is difficult due to its relatively weak absorption compared to other trace gases. Therefore, further improvements of current MAX-DOAS glyoxal retrievals are needed.
Glyoxal was one of the target species during CINDI-3, the third semi-blind intercomparison campaign of UV-Vis DOAS instruments in Cabauw, The Netherlands. Based on the large scatter of the measurements among the participating instruments, it was identified as one of the more challenging trace gases to retrieve. A task group has been formed to develop a common and improved approach to retrieve glyoxal, using the data collected by several instruments and institutes during the campaign, and applying different retrieval software. In this study, we present the initial glyoxal retrievals from the campaign, and outline the development of improved retrieval settings, which we want to propose as a new standard for future glyoxal measurements.
How to cite: Krause, K., Richter, A., Bittner, S., Frieß, U., Ziegler, S., Gilke, R., Wagner, T., Donner, S., Ryan, R., Castelli, E., Achilli, A., Pettinari, P., Frins, E., Barragán, R., Pinardi, G., van Roozendael, M., Mak, H. W. L., Kwon, H.-A., Strong, K., Alwarda, R., Joshy, K., Bates, D., Lv, C., Li, A., Hu, Z., Karagkiozidis, D., Bais, A., Prados-Roman, C., Navarro-Comas, M., Puentedura Rodriguez, O., Yela Gonzalez, M., Chan, K. L., Liu, C., Tang, S., Xing, C., Ji, X., Lampel, J., and Bösch, H.: CINDI-3 glyoxal intercomparison, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-16039, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-16039, 2025.
