New sampling strategy removes imaging spectroscopy solar-smearing bias in sub-km vapour scaling statistics

Abstract. Upcoming spaceborne imaging spectrometers will allow retrieval of total column water vapour (TCWV) over land at horizontal resolution of 30–80 m. Here we show how to obtain, from these retrievals, exponents describing the power-law scaling of sub-km horizontal variability in clear-sky bulk planetary boundary layer (PBL) water vapour (q). Using large-eddy simulations (LES) of shallow convective PBLs we show how sunlight entering the PBL up to several km away from the footprint location degrades estimates of these exponents. We address this by calculating exponents perpendicular to the solar azimuth, that is to say flying “across” the sunlight path rather than “towards” or “away” from the Sun. Across 23 LES snapshots, at SZA = 60° the mean bias in calculated exponent is 38 ± 12 % (95 % range) along the solar azimuth, while following our strategy it is 3 ± 9 % and no longer significant. Both bias and root-mean-square error RMSE decrease with lower SZA. We include retrieval errors from several sources including: (1) the Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) instrument noise model, (2) requisite assumptions about the atmospheric thermodynamic profile, and (3) spatially nonuniform aerosol distributions. This technique can be used to obtain unique information about sub-km PBL q scaling from upcoming spaceborne spectrometer missions, while mitigating errors due to challenging solar geometries.