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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">EGUsphere</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>EGUsphere</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub"></issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/egusphere-2026-3382</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Evaluation of the GOSAT/GOSAT-2 XCO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; proxy XCH&lt;sub&gt;4&lt;/sub&gt; product by comparison with TCCON observations over China</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Jiang</surname>
<given-names>Xinran</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0009-0008-8609-244X</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>de Leeuw</surname>
<given-names>Gerrit</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1649-6333</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Fan</surname>
<given-names>Cheng</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1547-9758</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Dong</surname>
<given-names>Jeon-Teo</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9877-3743</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Li</surname>
<given-names>Zhengqiang</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth, Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of  Sciences, Beijing 100101, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), R&amp;D Satellite Observations, P.O. Box 201, 3730AE De Bilt, The Netherlands</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff4">
<label>4</label>
<addr-line>Satellite Application Center for Ecology and Environment, Ministry of Ecology and Environment of People&apos;s Republic of  China, Beijing 100094, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>07</day>
<month>07</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>34</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Xinran Jiang et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-3382/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-3382/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-3382/egusphere-2026-3382.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-3382/egusphere-2026-3382.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Methane (CH₄) is the second most important greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide (CO₂) and its accurate monitoring supports China&apos;s &quot;dual carbon&quot; goals. Satellites enable global monitoring of CH₄, supported by various sensors and retrieval techniques. Among them, the XCO₂ proxy method derives the column-averaged dry-air mole fraction of CH₄ (XCH₄) from the XCH₄/XCO₂ ratio and an independent estimate of XCO₂. By exploiting the overlapping absorption bands of CH₄ and CO₂ near 1.6 &amp;mu;m and assuming similar vertical distributions, the ratio eliminates common retrieval errors, providing an accurate estimate of XCH₄. In this study, four XCO₂ proxy methane products, GOSAT SRPR, OCPR, FOCAL Proxy, and GOSAT-2 SRPR, are evaluated using TCCON ground-based observations at the Hefei and Xianghe sites in China. The comparison shows that the GOSAT products (OCPR, SRPR, FOCAL Proxy) are more accurate at Xianghe, while GOSAT-2 products (SRPR) are similar at both sites with better performance than each of the GOSAT products (&amp;gt;50 % meeting GCOS requirements). All products, except OCPR, overestimate XCH₄ at Hefei and underestimate XCH₄ at Xianghe, which stems from both XCO₂ prior model errors and spatial inconsistency between satellite and ground-based measurements. Furthermore, the overestimation of the ratio implies that the fundamental assumption of the XCO₂ proxy method is not fulfilled, primarily due to bias in raw XCH₄. This study provides key error characteristics and spatial-seasonal biases in current satellite proxy methane products over China, providing a scientific basis for future retrieval optimization.</p>
</abstract>
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<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>Ministry of Ecology and Environment, The People’s Republic of China</funding-source>
<award-id>2025ZD1200900</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
</article-meta>
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