Assessing nitrogen dioxide in the highveld troposphere : pandora insights and TROPOMI sentinel-5P evaluation

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Authors

Kai-Sikhakhane, Refilwe F.
Scholes, Mary C.
Piketh, Stuart J.
Van Geffen, Jos
Garland, Rebecca M.
Havenga, Henno
Selomane, Odirilwe

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

MDPI

Abstract

Nitrogen oxides, particularly NO2, are emitted through a variety of industrial and transport processes globally. The world’s continuous economic development, including in developing countries, results in an increasing concentration of those gases in the atmosphere. Yet, there is scant information on the current state and recent evolution of these atmospheric pollutants over a range of spatial and temporal scales, especially in Africa. This, in turn, hinders the assessment of the emissions and the evaluation of potential risks or impacts on societies and their economies, as well as on the environment. This study attempts to fill the gap by leveraging data from a Pandora-2S ground-based, columnintegrating instrument located inWakkerstroom in the Mpumalanga Province of South Africa and space-based remote sensing data obtained from the TROPOMI instrument onboard the ESA Sentinel- 5P satellite. We compare these two spatially (horizontal) representative data sets using statistical tools to investigate the concentrations of emitted and transported NO2 at this particular location, expecting that a significant positive correlation between the NO2 tropospheric vertical column (TVC) data might justify using the TROPOMI data, available globally, as a proxy for tropospheric and boundary layer NO2 concentrations over the Highveld of South Africa more generally. The data from the two instruments showed no significant difference between the interannual mean TVC-NO2 in 2020 and 2021. The seasonal patterns for both instruments were different in 2020, but in 2021, both measured peak TVC-NO2 concentrations in late winter (week 34). The instruments both detected higher TVCNO2 concentrations during transitions between seasons, particularly from winter to spring. The TVC-NO2 concentrations measured in Wakkerstroom Mpumalanga are mostly contributed to by the emission sources in the low troposphere, such as biomass burning and emissions from local power stations.

Description

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT : Publicly available datasets were analysed in this study. This data can be found here: https://dataspace.copernicus.eu/ (accessed on 13 September 2023) for the TROPOMI data and http://data.pandonia-global-network.org/Wakkerstroom/Pandora159s1/L2/Pandora1 59s1_Wakkerstroom_L2_rnvs3p1-8.txt (accessed on 8 January 2023) for the Pandora-2s data.

Keywords

Pandora-2s, Nitrogen dioxide, TROPOMI, Sentinel-5P, Air quality, Validation, SDG-11: Sustainable cities and communities, SDG-13: Climate action

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG-11:Sustainable cities and communities
SDG-13:Climate action

Citation

Kai-Sikhakhane, R.F.; Scholes, M.C.; Piketh, S.J.; van Geffen, J.; Garland, R.M.; Havenga, H.; Scholes, R.J. Assessing Nitrogen Dioxide in the Highveld Troposphere: Pandora Insights and TROPOMI Sentinel-5P Evaluation. Atmosphere 2024, 15, 1187. https://DOI.org/10.3390/atmos15101187.