High‐Resolution Mapping of Nitrogen Dioxide With TROPOMI: First Results and Validation Over the Canadian Oil Sands

Abstract

Nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) is a pollutant that is linked to respiratory health issues and has negative environmental impacts such as soil and water acidification. Near the surface the most significant sources of NO₂ are fossil fuel combustion and biomass burning. With a recently launched satellite instrument (TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument; TROPOMI) NO₂ can be measured with an unprecedented combination of accuracy, spatial coverage, and resolution. This work presents the first TROPOMI NO₂ measurements near the Canadian Oil Sands and shows that these measurements have an outstanding ability to detect NO₂ on a very high horizontal resolution that is unprecedented for satellite NO₂ observations. Further, these satellite measurements are in excellent agreement with aircraft and ground-based measurements.