Accuracy comparison of monthly AIRS, GOSAT and SCIAMACHY data in monitoring atmospheric CH4 concentration

Abstract

AIRS, GOSAT and SCIAMACHY are all very important remote sensors in observing atmospheric CH4 concentrations, and produce different observation data which have their own advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, it is important to decide which atmospheric CH4 production is more agreeable to the surface monitor of CH4 concentrations. Taking the WALIGUAN (China) site for example, correlation analysis on time series between ground-based observation data and the three remotely sensed data showed that CH4 concentrations from the AIRS data had the highest correlation with the WLG ground-based observation data, with the correlation coefficient of 0.503, 0.565, and 0.559 for the CH4 concentration at 160hPa, 260hPa and 360hPa, respectively. The CH4 concentrations from SCIAMACHY and GOSAT had a relatively lower coefficient values with the measured data at WLG, at 0.355 and 0.279, respectively.