Influences of aerosols and thin cirrus clouds on GOSAT XCO2 and XCH4 using Total Carbon Column Observing Network, sky radiometer, and lidar data

The column-averaged, dry air mole fractions of CO2 and CH4 (XCO2 and XCH4, respectively) were retrieved from short-wavelength infrared (SWIR) spectra observed by the Greenhouse gases Observing SATellite (GOSAT). Continuous measurements of SWIR spectra have been made via GOSAT since 2009, but there has been insufficient investigation of the effects of cirrus clouds and aerosols on the observations. In this work, we investigated the influences of aerosols and cirrus clouds on the differences between GOSAT observations and Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON) data for XCO2 and XCH4 (Delta XCO2 and Delta XCH4) at three sites: Tsukuba and Saga in Japan, and Lauder in New Zealand. We used aerosol optical thickness (AOT), Angstrom exponents (AEs), and single scattering albedo (SSA), all obtained from sky radiometer observations, as well as vertical profiles of aerosols and thin cirrus clouds from lidar observations. Matchups were performed within +/- 0.1 degrees latitude/longitude rectangular areas of each TCCON site, and within 30 min of the GOSAT overpass time. The results show a negative slope between Delta XCO2 and AOT at 500 nm determined from sky radiometer data at Tsukuba and Saga. The GOSAT XCO2 values tended to be lowered in the presence of cirrus clouds and dense boundary-layer aerosols. Moreover, a significant negative Delta XCO2 was observed at times of large AOTs that resulted from dust-like events. At Lauder, Delta XCO2 was negatively correlated with the AOT at 500 nm, although the AOT at this site was generally small. The mean +/- standard deviation for Delta XCO2 and Delta XCH4 at Lauder are -0.80 +/- 1.83 (ppm) and -5.27 +/- 10.79 (ppb) with correlation coefficients r between GOSAT and TCCON of 0.94 and 0.83, respectively. Both Delta XCO2 and Delta XCH4 were significantly and negatively correlated with the AOT during Sep-Oct-Nov. In addition, stratospheric aerosols caused large negative biases of Delta XCO2 and Delta XCH4 at Lauder despite the small stratospheric aerosol optical depth at that site.