Formaldehyde columns from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument: Urban versus background levels and evaluation using aircraft data and a global model.

[1] We combine aircraft measurements (Second Texas Air Quality Study, Megacity Initiative: Local and Global Research Observations, Intercontinental Chemical Transport Experiment: Phase B) over the United States, Mexico, and the Pacific with a 3-D model (GEOS-Chem) to evaluate formaldehyde column (Ω) retrievals from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) and assess the information they provide on HCHO across local to regional scales and urban to background regimes. OMI Ω correlates well with columns derived from aircraft measurements and GEOS-Chem ( = 0.80).