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Creators/Authors contains: "Cuesta, Juan"

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  1. Abstract. Tropical tropospheric ozone (TTO) is important for the global radiation budget because the longwave radiative effect of tropospheric ozone is higher in the tropics than midlatitudes. In recent decades the TTO burden has increased, partly due to the ongoing shift of ozone precursor emissions from midlatitude regions toward the Equator. In this study, we assess the distribution and trends of TTO using ozone profiles measured by high-quality in situ instruments from the IAGOS (In-Service Aircraft for a Global Observing System) commercial aircraft, the SHADOZ (Southern Hemisphere ADditional OZonesondes) network, and the ATom (Atmospheric Tomographic Mission) aircraft campaign, as well as six satellite records reporting tropical tropospheric column ozone (TTCO): TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI), Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI), OMI/Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS), Ozone Mapping Profiler Suite (OMPS)/Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications version 2 (MERRA-2), Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS), and Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI)/Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment 2 (GOME2). With greater availability of ozone profiles across the tropics we can now demonstrate that tropical India is among the most polluted regions (e.g., western Africa, tropical South Atlantic, Southeast Asia, Malaysia and Indonesia), with present-day 95th percentile ozone values reaching 80 nmol mol−1 in the lower free troposphere, comparable to midlatitude regions such as northeastern China and Korea. In situ observations show that TTO increased between 1994 and 2019, with the largest mid- and upper-tropospheric increases above India, Southeast Asia, and Malaysia and Indonesia (from 3.4 ± 0.8 to 6.8 ± 1.8 nmol mol−1 decade−1), reaching 11 ± 2.4 and 8 ± 0.8 nmol mol−1 decade−1 close to the surface (India and Malaysia–Indonesia, respectively). The longest continuous satellite records only span 2004–2019 but also show increasing ozone across the tropics when their full sampling is considered, with maximum trends over Southeast Asia of 2.31 ± 1.34 nmol mol−1 decade−1 (OMI) and 1.69 ± 0.89 nmol mol−1 decade−1 (OMI/MLS). In general, the sparsely sampled aircraft and ozonesonde records do not detect the 2004–2019 ozone increase, which could be due to the genuine trends on this timescale being masked by the additional uncertainty resulting from sparse sampling. The fact that the sign of the trends detected with satellite records changes above three IAGOS regions, when their sampling frequency is limited to that of the in situ observations, demonstrates the limitations of sparse in situ sampling strategies. This study exposes the need to maintain and develop high-frequency continuous observations (in situ and remote sensing) above the tropical Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, western Africa, and South Asia in order to estimate accurate and precise ozone trends for these regions. In contrast, Southeast Asia and Malaysia–Indonesia are regions with such strong increases in ozone that the current in situ sampling frequency is adequate to detect the trends on a relatively short 15-year timescale. 
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  2. Crop evapotranspiration (ETc) measurement is usually performed by sophisticated sensors that require high technical knowledge and that are not economically affordable for most end users. The objective of this work was to evaluate the performance of a novel LI-710 sensor for measuring ETc on a pistachio orchard. This simplified and easy-to-use sensor applies the Eddy Covariance (EC) method to measure water vapor flux between the surface and the atmosphere, however, it is cheaper and less complex than traditional EC heat flux system. The LI-710 sensor was installed together to an EC tower and the measurements provided by both methodologies were compared. Initial results evidenced a good agreement in terms of the evaluated meteorological variables, except for relative humidity, where higher discrepancies among sensors were observed. Regarding the sensible (H) and latent (LE) heat fluxes, the values measured by both methodologies were similar, with R2 values of 0.96 and 0.80; and RMSE values of 19 and 29 W m−2, respectively. These results suggest that LI-710 sensor can be a valid alternative to traditional EC systems for deriving ETc. However, LI-710 continues to have the fetch limitations presented in traditional methodologies, so future efforts should be paid to reduce this requirement increasing its usability in medium-small sized agricultural plots. 
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