POMINO-GEMS: A Research Product for Tropospheric NO2 Columns from Geostationary Environment Monitoring Spectrometer.

Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) is a major air pollutant. Tropospheric NO2 vertical column densities (VCDs) retrieved from sun-synchronous satellite instruments have provided abundant NO2 data for environmental studies, but such data are limited by insufficient temporal sampling (e.g., once a day). The Geostationary Environment Monitoring Spectrometer (GEMS) launched in February 2020 monitors NO2 at an unprecedented high temporal resolution. Here we present a research product for tropospheric NO2 VCDs, referred to as POMINO-GEMS. We develop a hybrid retrieval method combining GEMS and TROPOMI observations as well as GEOS-Chem simulations to generate hourly tropospheric NO2 slant column densities (SCDs). We then derive tropospheric NO2 air mass factors (AMFs) with explicit corrections for the anisotropy of surface reflectance and aerosol optical effects, through pixel-by-pixel radiative transfer calculations. Prerequisite cloud parameters are retrieved with the O2-O2 algorithm by using ancillary parameters consistent with those used in NO2 AMF calculations. Initial retrieval of POMINO-GEMS tropospheric NO2 VCDs for June-August 2021 reveals strong hotspot signals over megacities and distinctive diurnal variations over polluted and clean areas. POMINO-GEMS NO2 VCDs agree well with our POMINO-TROPOMI v1.2.2 product (R = 0.97, and NMB = 3.6%) over Asia. Comparison with ground-based MAX-DOAS VCD data at nine sites shows a small bias of POMINO-GEMS (NMB = -15.7%); however, the correlation for diurnal variation varies from -0.66 to 0.90, suggesting location-dependent performance. Surface NO2 concentrations estimated from POMINO-GEMS VCDs are consistent with measurements from the Ministry of Ecology and Environment of China at 855 sites (NMB = -24.1%, and R = 0.95 for diurnal correlation averaged over all sites). POMINO-GEMS data will be made freely available for users to study the spatiotemporal variations, sources and impacts of NO2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]