ACPD Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions ACPD 1680-7375 Copernicus GmbH Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/acpd-9-4769-2009 Detection of pollution transport events southeast of Mexico City using ground-based visible spectroscopy measurements of nitrogen dioxide Melamed M. L. 1 Basaldud R. 1 Steinbrecher R. 2 Emeis S. 2 Ruíz-Suárez L. G. 1 Grutter M. 1 3 Centro de Ciencias de la Atmósfera, Univ. Nacional Autónoma de México, México D.F., México Institute for Meteorology and Climate Research, Atmospheric Environmental Research (IMK-IFU), Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe GmbH, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany now at: Institut für Meteorologie und Klimaforschung, Karlsruhe, Germany 24 02 2009 9 1 4769 4804 This is an open-access article ditributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This article is available from http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/9/4769/2009/acpd-9-4769-2009.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/9/4769/2009/acpd-9-4769-2009.pdf

This work presents ground based differential optical absorption spectroscopy (DOAS) measurements of nitrogen dioxide (NO<sub>2</sub>) during the MILAGRO field campaign in March 2006 at the Tenango del Aire research site located to the southeast of Mexico City. The DOAS NO<sub>2</sub> column density measurements are used in conjunction with ceilometer, meteorological and surface nitrogen oxides (NO<sub>x</sub>) and total reactive nitrogen (NO<sub>y</sub>) measurements to show a more comprehensive view of air pollution results when a research site has both surface and remote sensing instruments. An in depth analysis of 13 March 2006 demonstrates how DOAS NO<sub>2</sub>, surface NO<sub>2</sub> and ceilometer data can be used to determine the extent of mixing of the pollution layer. In addition, we show the effectiveness of how DOAS measurements can be used to observe pollution sources that may reside above the mixing layer, such as the presence of lightning produced NO<sub>2</sub> as seen on 28 March 2006.

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