Evaluation of MOPITT retrievals of lower-tropospheric carbon monoxide over the United States

The new Version 5 MOPITT (Measurements of Pollution in the Troposphere) product for carbon monoxide (CO) is the first satellite product to exploit simultaneous near-infrared and thermal-infrared observations to enhance retrieval sensitivity in the lower troposphere. This feature is important to air quality analyses and studies of CO sources. However, because of the influence of both thermal contrast and geophysical noise, the retrieval characteristics for this new multispectral product are highly variable. New V5 products for surface-level CO concentrations have been evaluated over the contiguous United States using both in situ vertical profiles and NOAA ground-based "Tall Tower" measurements. Validation results based on the in situ profiles indicate that retrieval biases are on the order of a few percent. However, direct comparisons with the Tall Tower measurements demonstrate that smoothing error, which depends on both the retrieval averaging kernels and CO variability in the lower troposphere, exhibits significant geographical and seasonal variability.