On 13 October 2017 the European Sentinel 5 Precursor was successfully launched, with on board the TROPOMI (TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument). TROPOMI is an imaging spectrometer developed by The Netherlands and ESA for monitoring the atmospheric composition, for air quality climate and ozone layer monitoring. The launch of TROPOMI marks the start of operational atmospheric composition measurements from space within the European Copernicus programme, the largest Earth observation programme in the world.
After one month of instrument checkout, the first light of TROPOMI was received in November 2017. During the commissioning phase the TROPOMI instrument settings were optimized. This included an increase in the spatial sampling from 7x7 to 3.5x7 km2(across track x along track), for most of the TROPOMI spectral bands.

The S5P commissioning phase was completed half a year after launch and on 30 April 2018 the routine operations were started. The first batch of data products was publicly released on 11 July 2018. By the time of the AGU fall meeting, almost all the data products must have been released.

TROPOMI has provided very exciting results during its first year in orbit. Very remarkable are the plumes of short-lived gases like NO2, which can extend several tens of kilometers from the source. These plumes were predicted by air quality models; however it requires the spatial resolution of TROPOMI to see them from space. Also, the CO maps have attracted a lot of attention. Because of the high sensitivity for the entire vertical column, both the sources as well as the transport of CO are clearly visible in the TROPOMI data.

The high spatial resolution of the TROPOMI data also poses new challenges. More than for the previous satellite sensors, the need for accurate modelling of the surface reflectance becomes clear. Also, the 3D effects of clouds are now more prominent. All these aspects are also important for the upcoming geostationary missions within the CEOS air quality constellation.

In this presentation an overview will be given of the status of the mission, including the in-orbit calibration and the data products. Specific results will be highlighted that illustrate the new capabilities of TROPOMI and also the challenges that need to be addressed in future updates of the data products.@en

In March and April of 2015, the NOAA WP-3D research aircraft made airborne measurements over several different oil and natural gas production regions in the central and western U.S. ranging from North Dakota to Texas. The study was conducted at a time when the domestic production of natural gas was at an all-time high and the production of crude oil near an all-time high, but also when drilling activity had abruptly decreased due to a drop in the price of oil. In this presentation, we will give a summary of the measurement results obtained in the different production regions. Emission fluxes of greenhouse gases (CH4) and air pollutants (VOCs, NOx, air toxics) were determined through mass balance and from enhancement ratios versus methane. While photochemistry was generally weak during the flights, some trace gases showed evidence for secondary formation. Measurements by mass spectrometry showed the presence of some less commonly observed trace gases including nitrogen heterocyclic compounds. Emissions of pollutants are expressed as a fraction of the produced natural gas and crude oil. Such metrics can be compared with emission factors for fossil fuel combustion by other sources (motor vehicles and power plants) and allow a comparison of emissions from different stages in the lifecycle of fossil fuels. We have also studied NOx emissions from oil and natural gas production through trend analysis of the NO2columns from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument. This analysis shows that the drilling of new wells and the extraction of crude oil and natural gas both lead to NOx emissions. These results are compared with a new fuel-based emission inventory for NOx emissions from oil and natural gas production.@en