Uccle, Belgium, 50.5°N, 4°E

Introduction

In the framework of the AGACC-2 project , a mini-MAXDOAS instrument has been installed at Uccle since May 2011, on the roof of the IRM-KMI building. On the site, Brewer and CIMEL instruments are also operated continuously.

Instrument and operation

The mini-MAXDOAS is a commercial system from Hoffmann Messtechnik GmbH, consisting of an Ocean Optics spectrograph, diffraction grating, and a CCD detector. The whole instrument is contained in a compact metal box (13x19x14 cm3) mounted on a stepper motor, allowing the change in viewing elevation angle. The BIRA miniDOAS covers the 290-435 nm wavelength region with a resolution of ~0.6nm.

List of publications

Gielen, C., Van Roozendael, M., Hendrick, F., Pinardi, G., Vlemmix, T., De Bock, V., De Backer, H., Fayt, C., Hermans, C., Gillotay, D., and Wang, P.: A simple and versatile cloud-screening method for MAX-DOAS retrievals, Atmos. Meas. Tech. Discuss., 7, 5883-5920, doi:10.5194/amtd-7-5883-2014, 2014. [link]

De Smedt, I., Stavrakou, T., Hendrick, F., Danckaert, T., Vlemmix, T., Pinardi, G., Theys, N., Lerot, C., Gielen, C., Vigouroux, C., Hermans, C., Fayt, C., Veefkind, P., Müller, J.-F., and Van Roozendael, M.: Diurnal, seasonal and long-term variations of global formaldehyde columns inferred from combined OMI and GOME-2 observations, Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., 15, 12241-12300, doi:10.5194/acpd-15-12241-2015, 2015 [link]