Impact of different spectroscopic datasets on CH4 retrievals from Jungfraujoch FTIR spectra

Due to its high warming potential and its relatively long chemical lifetime (~9 years), atmospheric methane (CH4) plays a major role in the radiative forcing responsible of the greenhouse effect. Methane also affects climate by influencing tropospheric ozone and stratospheric water. High quality methane data sets are needed to understand its cycle and evaluate its budget of sources and sinks. Methane vertical distribution as well as total and partial column time series can be retrieved from high-resolution ground-based FTIR spectra, using, e.g., the SFIT-2 algorithm which implements the Optimal Estimation Method of Rodgers . However, although several retrieval approaches characterized by relatively high information content exist, methane retrieved profiles very often present large oscillations in their tropospheric range, which might result partly from inappropriate or inconsistent parameters. Significant improvements on retrieval quality should therefore be reached by using more accurate or compatible CH4 spectroscopic data. The main purpose of this contribution is to test and compare three different sets of CH4 spectroscopic parameters and to quantify their impact on CH4 retrieved products as well as on the fitting quality.