References

ACP

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics

ACP

1680-7324

Copernicus GmbH

Göttingen, Germany

10.5194/acp-10-5593-2010

Co-located column and in situ measurements of CO2 in the tropics compared with model simulations

Warneke

¹ Petersen

A. K.

¹ Gerbig

² Jordan

² Rödenbeck

² Rothe

² Macatangay

¹ ² Notholt

¹ Schrems

Institute of Environmental Physics, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry (MPI-BGC), Jena, Germany

Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), Bremerhaven, Germany

25 06 2010

10 12 5593 5599

This is an open-access article ditributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

This article is available from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/10/5593/2010/acp-10-5593-2010.html

The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/10/5593/2010/acp-10-5593-2010.pdf

The first ground-based remote sensing measurements of the column averaged volume mixing ratio of CO2 (XCO2) in tropical South America have been obtained at Paramaribo, Suriname (5.8° N, 55.2° W). The remote sensing observations are complemented by surface air-samples collected at the site, analyzed for CO2 and 13CO2. The surface in-situ measurements are strongly influenced by local sources. From the isotopic composition of the air samples the local source component is suggested to be dominated by the terrestrial biosphere. Using δ13C from the NOAA/ESRL stations Ascension Is. (ASC), 7.9° S, 14.4° W, and Ragged Point (RPB), 13.2° N, 59.4° W, the data has been corrected for the local source component. Due to the migration of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) over the measurement site the sampled air masses belong to the Northern or Southern Hemisphere depending on the time of the year. Comparison to analyzed CO2 fields based on TM3 model simulations using optimized fluxes indicate agreement for the seasonality in XCO2 as well as for the corrected CO2 mixing ratios at the surface for the long dry season, when Paramaribo belongs to the Southern Hemisphere. A slightly worse agreement during the short dry season is attributed to a larger representation error during this time of the year. Overall the comparison indicates that the TM3 model is capable to simulate the seasonal variation of surface concentrations as well as column densities of CO2 correctly at Paramaribo. It has been also shown that the column measurements currently performed at Paramaribo have a limited precision and lack the link to the in situ measurements. Solutions for future improvements have been suggested.

References 1

Andres, R J., Marland, G., and Bischof, S.: Global and latitudinal estimates of $\delta^13$C from fossil-fuel consumption and cement manufacture, Carbon Dioxide Information Center, Oak Ridge National Labaratory, Oak Ridge, Tenn., USA, available at: ftp://cdiac.ornl.gov/pub/db1013/, 1999.

Brown, L R., Gunson, M R., Toth, R A., Irion, F W., Rinsland, C P., and Goldman, A.: The 1995 Atmospheric Trace Molecule Spectroscopy (ATMOS) linelist, Appl. Opt., 35, 2828–2848, 1996.

Deutscher, N. M., Griffith, D. W. T., Bryant, G. W., Wennberg, P. O., Toon, G. C., Washenfelder, R. A., Keppel-Aleks, G., Wunch, D., Yavin, Y., Allen, N. T., Blavier, J.-F., Jiménez, R., Daube, B. C., Bright, A. V., Matross, D. M., Wofsy, S. C., and Park, S.: Total column CO2 measurements at Darwin, Australia – site description and calibration against in situ aircraft profiles, Atmos. Meas. Tech. Discuss., 3, 989–1021, doi:10.5194/amtd-3-989-2010, 2010.

Flanagan, L., Ehleringer, J R., and Pataki, D E.: Stable Isotopes and Biosphere-Atmosphere Interactions: Processes and Biological Controls, Elsevier Academic Press, San Diego, CA, 2005.

Frankenberg, C., Bergamaschi, P., Butz, A., Houweling, S., Meirink, J F., Notholt, J., Petersen, A K., Schrijver, H., Warneke, T., and Aben, I.: Tropical methane emissions: A revised view from SCIAMACHY onboard ENVISAT, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L15811, doi:10.1029/2008GL034300, 2008.

Gurney K. R., Law, R. M., Denning, A. S., Rayner, P. J., Baker, D., Bousquet, P., Bruhwiler, L., Chen, Y. H., Ciais, P., Fan, S., Fung, I. Y., Gloor, M., Heimann, M., Higuchi, K., John, J., Maki, T., Maksyutov, S., Masarie, K., Peylin, P., Prather, M., Pak, B. C., Randerson, J., Sarmiento, J., Taguchi, S., Takahashi, T., and Yuen, C. W.: Towards robust regional estimates of CO2 sources and sinks using atmospheric transport models, Nature, 415, 626–630, 2002.

Gullison, R E. , Frumhoff, P C., Canadell, J G., Field, C B., Nepstad, D C., Hayhoe, K., Avissar, R., Curran, L M., Friedlingstein, P., Jones, C D., and Nobre, C.: Tropical Forests and Climate Policy, Science, 316, 985–986, 2007.

IPCC: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis, Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, edited by: Solomon, S., Qin, D., Manning, M., Chen, Z., Marquis, M., Averyt, K B., Tignor, M., and Miller, H L., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, 2007.

Jenouvrier, A., Daumont, L., R'egalia-Jarlot, L., Tyuterev, V G., Carleer, M., Vandaele, A. C., Mikhailenko, S., and Fally, S.: Fourier transform measurements of water vapor line parameters in the 4200–6600 cm−1 region, J. Quant. Spectrosc. Radiat. Transfer, 105(2), 326–355, 2007.

Keeling, C D.: The concentration and isotopic abundance of carbon dioxide in rural and marine air, Geochim. Cosmochim. Ac., 24, 277–298, 1961.

Keppel-Aleks, G., Toon, G C., Wennberg, P O., and Deutscher, N M.: Reducing the impact of source brightness fluctuations on spectra obtained by Fourier-transform spectrometry, Appl. Opt., 46, 4774–4779, 2007.

Pataki, D E., Ehleringer, J R., Flanagan, L B., Yakir, D., Bowling, D R., Still, C J., Buchmann, N., Kaplan, J O., and Berry, J A.: The application and interpretation of Keeling plots in terrestrial carbon cycle research, Global Biogeochem. Cycles, 17(1), 1022, doi:10.1029/2001GB001850, 2003.

Petersen, A K., Warneke, T., Lawrence, M G., Notholt, J., and Schrems, O.: First ground-based FTIR observations of the seasonal variation of carbon monoxide in the tropics, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L03813, doi:10.1029/2007GL031393, 2008.

Rödenbeck, C.: Estimating CO2 sources and sinks from atmospheric mixing ratio measurements using a global inversion of atmospheric transport, Tech. Rep., 6, Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry (MPI-BGC), Jena, Germany, available at: http://www.bgc-jena.mpg.de/mpg/websiteBiogeochemie/Publikationen/Technical_Reports/tech_report6.pdf, 2005.

Schneising, O., Buchwitz, M., Burrows, J. P., Bovensmann, H., Reuter, M., Notholt, J., Macatangay, R., and Warneke, T.: Three years of greenhouse gas column-averaged dry air mole fractions retrieved from satellite – Part 1: Carbon dioxide, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 8, 3827–3853, doi:10.5194/acp-8-3827-2008, 2008.

Stephens B B., Gurney, K R., Tans, P P., Sweeney, C., Peters, W., Bruhwiler, L., Ciais, P., Ramonet, M., Bousquet, P., Nakazawa, T., Aoki, S., Machida, T., Inoue, G., Vinnichenko, N., Lloyd, J., Jordan, A., Heimann, M., Shibistova, O., Langenfelds, R L., Steele, L P., Francey, R J., Denning, A S.: Weak Northern and Strong Tropical Land Carbon Uptake from Vertical Profiles of Atmospheric CO2, Science, 316, 1732, doi:10.1126/science.1137004, 2007.

Toon, G C., Farmer, C B., Schaper, P W., Lowes, L L., and Norton, R H.: Composition Measurements of the 1989 Arctic Winter Stratosphere by Airborne Infrared Solar Absorption Spectroscopy, J. Geophys. Res., 97(D8), 7939–7961, doi:10.1029/91JD03114, 1992.

Toth, R A., Brown, L R., Miller, C E., Devi, V M., and Benner, D C.: Spectroscopic database of CO2 line parameters: 4300–7000 cm−1, J. Quant. Spectrosc. Radiat. Transfer, 109(6), 906–921, 2008.

Warneke, T., Yang, Z., Olsen, S., Körner, S., Notholt, J., Toon, G C., Velazco, V., Schulz, A., and Schrems, O.: Seasonal and latitudinal variations of column averaged volume-mixing ratios of atmospheric CO2, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L03808, doi:10.1029/2004GL021597, 2005.

Washenfelder, R A., Toon, G C., Blavier, J F., Yang, Z., Allen, N T., Wennberg, P O., Vay, S A., Matross, D M., and Daube, B C.: Carbon dioxide column abundances at the Wisconsin Tall Tower site, J. Geophys. Res., 111, D22305, doi:10.1029/2006JD007154, 2006.

White, J. W. C. and Vaughn, B. H.: University of Colorado, Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR), Stable Isotopic Composition of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide ($^13$C and $^18$O) from the NOAA ESRL Carbon Cycle Cooperative Global Air Sampling Network, 1990–2007, Version: 2009-06-01, Path: ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2c13/flask/event/, 2009.

Wunch, D., Toon, G. C., Wennberg, P. O., Wofsy, S. C., Stephens, B. B., Fischer, M. L., Uchino, O., Abshire, J. B., Bernath, P., Biraud, S. C., Blavier, J.-F. L., Boone, C., Bowman, K. P., Browell, E. V., Campos, T., Connor, B. J., Daube, B. C., Deutscher, N. M., Diao, M., Elkins, J. W., Gerbig, C., Gottlieb, E., Griffith, D. W. T., Hurst, D. F., Jiménez, R., Keppel-Aleks, G., Kort, E., Macatangay, R., Machida, T., Matsueda, H., Moore, F., Morino, I., Park, S., Robinson, J., Roehl, C. M., Sawa, Y., Sherlock, V., Sweeney, C., Tanaka, T., and Zondlo, M. A.: Calibration of the total carbon column observing network using aircraft profile data, Atmos. Meas. Tech. Discuss., 3, 2603–2632, doi:10.5194/amtd-3-2603-2010, 2010.

Yang, Z., Washenfelder, R A., Keppel-Aleks, G., Krakauer, N Y., Randerson, J T., Tans, P P., Sweeney, C., and Wennberg, P O.: New constraints on Northern Hemisphere growing season net flux, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L12807, doi:10.1029/2007GL029742, 2007.