Global VOC emissions quantified from inversion of TROPOMI spaceborne formaldehyde and glyoxal data

Sfendla, Yasmine; Stavrakou, Trissevgeni; Müller, Jean-François; Oomen, Glenn-Michael; Opacka, Beata; Danckaert, Thomas; De Smedt, Isabelle; Lerot, Christophe

doi:10.5194/acp-26-733-2026

Articles | Volume 26, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-733-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-733-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 26, issue 1

Research article

|

15 Jan 2026

Research article |

| 15 Jan 2026

Global VOC emissions quantified from inversion of TROPOMI spaceborne formaldehyde and glyoxal data

Yasmine Sfendla, Trissevgeni Stavrakou, Jean-François Müller, Glenn-Michael Oomen, Beata Opacka, Thomas Danckaert, Isabelle De Smedt, and Christophe Lerot

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-733-2026-supplement

Data sets

Global top-down VOC emissions based on TROPOMI formaldehyde and glyoxal data (Version 1) [Data set] Y. Sfendla et al. https://doi.org/10.18758/52E4U9EN

TROPOMI glyoxal tropospheric 75 columns (Version V4) C. Lerot and T. Danckaert https://doi.org/10.18758/71021069

TROPOMI Level 2 Formaldehyde Total Column products, Version 02 Copernicus Sentinel-5P https://doi.org/10.5270/S5P-vg1i7t0

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Short summary

Volatile organic compounds (VOC) emitted from industry, wildfires, fuel use and vegetation impact the climate and are detrimental to human health. To guide regulation aimed at mitigating their impacts, it is important to know their emissions. We used satellite observations of formaldehyde and glyoxal, combined with a chemical transport model, and demonstrate that VOC emissions are about 20 % larger than expected; furthermore, unknown chemical pathways must be invoked to explain the observations.