A differential optical absorption spectroscopy method for {X_{CO_2}} retrieval from ground-based Fourier transform spectrometers measurements of the direct solar beam

A differential optical absorption spectroscopy (DOAS)-like algorithm is developed to retrieve the column-averaged dry-air mole fraction of carbon dioxide from ground-based hyper-spectral measurements of the direct solar beam. Different to the spectral fitting method, which minimizes the difference between the observed and simulated spectra, the ratios of multiple channel-pairs——one weak and one strong absorption channel——are used to retrieve X CO2 from measurements of the shortwave infrared (SWIR) band. Based on sensitivity tests, a super channel-pair is carefully selected to reduce the effects of solar lines, water vapor, air temperature, pressure, instrument noise, and frequency shift on retrieval errors. The new algorithm reduces computational cost and the retrievals are less sensitive to temperature and H2O uncertainty than the spectral fitting method. Multi-day Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON) measurements under clear-sky conditions at two sites (Tsukuba and Bremen) are used to derive X CO2 for the algorithm evaluation and validation. The DOAS-like results agree very well with those of the TCCON algorithm after correction of an airmass-dependent bias.