1. Institute of Environmental Physics, University of Bremen, Otto-Hahn-Allee 1, D-28359 Bremen, Germany
2. Max-Planck Institute for Meteorology, Bundesstrae 53, D-20146 Hamburg, Germany
3. Service d'Aeronomie/IPSL, University of Paris 6, Paris 75005, France
4. CIRES/NOAA Aeronomy Laboratory, 325 Broadway, Boulder, Colorado 80305, USA

Correspondence to: Andreas Richter¹ Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to A.R. (Email: richter@iup.physik.uni-bremen.de).

Abstract

Emissions from fossil fuel combustion and biomass burning reduce local air quality and affect global tropospheric chemistry. Nitrogen oxides are emitted by all combustion processes and play a key part in the photochemically induced catalytic production of ozone, which results in summer smog and has increased levels of tropospheric ozone globally¹. Release of nitrogen oxide also results in nitric acid deposition, and—at least locally—increases radiative forcing effects due to the absorption of downward propagating visible light². Nitrogen oxide concentrations in many industrialized countries are expected to decrease³, but rapid economic development has the potential to increase significantly the emissions of nitrogen oxides^{4, 5, 6, 7} in parts of Asia. Here we present the tropospheric column amounts of nitrogen dioxide retrieved from two satellite instruments GOME^{8, 9} and SCIAMACHY¹⁰ over the years 1996–2004. We find substantial reductions in nitrogen dioxide concentrations over some areas of Europe and the USA, but a highly significant increase of about 50 per cent—with an accelerating trend in annual growth rate—over the industrial areas of China, more than recent bottom-up inventories suggest⁶.

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