References

ACP

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics

ACP

1680-7324

Copernicus GmbH

Göttingen, Germany

10.5194/acp-11-2789-2011

Evaluating a 3-D transport model of atmospheric CO2 using ground-based, aircraft, and space-borne data

Feng

¹ Palmer

P. I.

¹ Yang

¹ ² ⁷ Yantosca

R. M.

³ Kawa

S. R.

⁴ Paris

J.-D.

⁵ Matsueda

⁶ Machida

⁶

School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, King's Buildings, Edinburgh EH9 3JN, UK

School of the Geosciences and Resources, China University of Geosciences, Beijing, China

School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, MA 02138, USA

Atmospheric Chemistry and Dynamics Branch, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, MD, 20771, USA

Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, IPSL, CNRS-CEA-UVSQ, Gif sur Yvette, France

National Institute for Environmental Studies, Tsukuba, Japan

now at: Department of Ecology, College of Urban and Environmental Science, Peking University, China

25 03 2011

11 6 2789 2803

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/11/2789/2011/acp-11-2789-2011.html

The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/11/2789/2011/acp-11-2789-2011.pdf

We evaluate the GEOS-Chem atmospheric transport model (v8-02-01) of CO2 over 2003–2006, driven by GEOS-4 and GEOS-5 meteorology from the NASA Goddard Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, using surface, aircraft and space-borne concentration measurements of CO2. We use an established ensemble Kalman Filter to estimate a posteriori biospheric+biomass burning (BS + BB) and oceanic (OC) CO2 fluxes from 22 geographical regions, following the TransCom-3 protocol, using boundary layer CO2 data from a subset of GLOBALVIEW surface sites. Global annual net BS + BB + OC CO2 fluxes over 2004–2006 for GEOS-4 (GEOS-5) meteorology are −4.4 ± 0.9 (−4.2 ± 0.9), −3.9 ± 0.9 (−4.5 ± 0.9), and −5.2 ± 0.9 (−4.9 ± 0.9) PgC yr−1, respectively. After taking into account anthropogenic fossil fuel and bio-fuel emissions, the global annual net CO2 emissions for 2004–2006 are estimated to be 4.0 ± 0.9 (4.2 ± 0.9), 4.8 ± 0.9 (4.2 ± 0.9), and 3.8 ± 0.9 (4.1 ± 0.9) PgC yr−1, respectively. The estimated 3-yr total net emission for GEOS-4 (GEOS-5) meteorology is equal to 12.5 (12.4) PgC, agreeing with other recent top-down estimates (12–13 PgC). The regional a posteriori fluxes are broadly consistent in the sign and magnitude of the TransCom-3 study for 1992–1996, but we find larger net sinks over northern and southern continents. We find large departures from our a priori over Europe during summer 2003, over temperate Eurasia during 2004, and over North America during 2005, reflecting an incomplete description of terrestrial carbon dynamics. We find GEOS-4 (GEOS-5) a posteriori CO2 concentrations reproduce the observed surface trend of 1.91–2.43 ppm yr−1 (parts per million per year), depending on latitude, within 0.15 ppm yr−1 (0.2 ppm yr−1) and the seasonal cycle within 0.2 ppm (0.2 ppm) at all latitudes. We find the a posteriori model reproduces the aircraft vertical profile measurements of CO2 over North America and Siberia generally within 1.5 ppm in the free and upper troposphere but can be biased by up to 4–5 ppm in the boundary layer at the start and end of the growing season. The model has a small negative bias in the free troposphere CO2 trend (1.95–2.19 ppm yr−1) compared to AIRS data which has a trend of 2.21–2.63 ppm yr−1 during 2004–2006, consistent with surface data. Model CO2 concentrations in the upper troposphere, evaluated using CONTRAIL (Comprehensive Observation Network for TRace gases by AIrLiner) aircraft measurements, reproduce the magnitude and phase of the seasonal cycle of CO2 in both hemispheres. We generally find that the GEOS meteorology reproduces much of the observed tropospheric CO2 variability, suggesting that these meteorological fields will help make significant progress in understanding carbon fluxes as more data become available.

References 1

Bakwin, P S., Tans, P P., Stephens, B B., Wofsy, S C., Gerbig, C., and Grainger, A.: Strategies for measurement of atmospheric column means of carbon dioxide from aircraft using discrete sampling, J. Geophys. Res., 108, 4514, http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2002JD003306doi:10.1029/2002JD003306, 2003.

Bloom, S., da~Silva, A., Dee, D., Bosilovich, M., Chern, J.-D., Pawson, S., Schubert, S., Sienkiewicz, M., Stajner, I., Tan, W.-W., and Wu, M.-L.: Documentation and Validation of the Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) Data Assimilation System – Version 4, Tech. Rep. Technical Report Series on Global Modeling and Data Assimilation 104606, 26, NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, 2005.

Brenkert, A L.: Carbon dioxide emission estimates from fossil-fuel burning, hydraulic cement production, and gas flaring for 1995 on a one degree grid cell basis, http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/epubs/ndp/ndp058a/ndp058a.html, carbon Dioxide Inf. Anal. Cent., Oak Ridge Natl. Lab., Oak Ridge, Tenn, 1998.

Chahine, M T., Chen, L., Dimotakis, P., Jiang, X., Li, Q., Olsen, E T., Pagano, T., Randerson, J., and Yung, Y L.: Satellite remote sounding of mid-tropospheric CO2, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L17807, http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2008GL035022doi:10.1029/2008GL035022, 2008.

Chevallier, F., Ciais, P., Conway, T. J., Aalto, T., Anderson, B. E., Bousquet, P., Brunke, E. G., Ciattaglia, L., Esaki, Y., Fröhlich, M., Gomez, A., Gomez-Pelaez, A. J., Haszpra, L., Krummel, P. B., Langenfelds, R. L., Leuenberger, M., Machida, T., Maignan, F., Matsueda, H., Morgu�, J. A., Mukai, H., Nakazawa, T., Peylin, P., Ramonet, M., Rivier, L., Sawa, Y., Schmidt, M., Steele, L. P., Vay, S. A., Vermeulen, A. T., Wofsy, S., and Worthy, D.: CO2 surface fluxes at grid point scale estimated from a global 21 year reanalysis of atmospheric measurements, J. Geophys. Res., 115, D21307, http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2010JD013887doi:10.1029/2010JD013887, 2010.

CT2009: CarbonTracker 2009, data available from http://carbontracker.noaa.gov, 2010.

Erickson, D. J., Mills, R. T., Gregg, J., Blasing, T. J., Hoffman, F. M., Andres, R. J., Devries, M., Zhu, Z., and Kawa, S. R.: An estimate of monthly global emissions of anthropogenic CO: Impact on the seasonal cycle of atmospheric CO2, J. Geophys. Res., 113, G01023, http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2007JG000435doi:10.1029/2007JG000435, 2008.

Feng, L., Palmer, P. I., Bösch, H., and Dance, S.: Estimating surface CO2 fluxes from space-borne CO2 dry air mole fraction observations using an ensemble Kalman Filter, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 9, 2619–2633, http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/acp-9-2619-2009doi:10.5194/acp-9-2619-2009, 2009.

Cooperative Atmospheric Data Project-Carbon Dioxide, CD-ROM, NOAA GMD, Boulder, Colorado (also available via anonymous FTP to ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov, Path: ccg/co2/GLOBALVIEW), 2009.

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.

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., Kowalczyk, E., Maki, T., Maksyutov, S., Peylin, P., Prather, M., Pak, B. C., Sarmiento, J., Taguchi, S., Takahashi, T., and Yuen, C.-W.: TransCom 3 inversion intercomparison:1. Annual mean control results and sensitivity to transport and prior flux information, Tellus, 55B, 555–579, 2003.

Gurney, K. R., Law, R. M., Denning, A. S., Rayner, P. J., Pak, B. C., Baker, D., Bousquet, P., Bruhwiler, L., Chen, Yu-H., Ciais, P., Fung, I. Y., Heimann, M., John, J., Maki, T., Maksyutov, S., Peylin, P., Prather, M., and Taguchi, S.: Transcom 3 inversion intercomparison: Model mean results for the estimation of seasonal carbon sources and sinks, Global Biogeochem. Cy., 18, GB1010, http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2003GB002111doi:10.1029/2003GB002111, 2004.

Gurney, K R., Baker, D., Rayner, P., and Denning, S.: Interannual variations in continental-scale net carbon exchange and sensitivity to observing networks estimated from atmospheric CO2 inversions for the period 1980 to 2005, Global Biogeochem. Cy., 22, GB3025, http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2007GB003082doi:10.1029/2007GB003082, 2008.

Hack, J J.: Parameterization of moist convection in the National Center for Atmospheric Research Community Climate Model (CCM2), J. Geophys. Res., 99, 5551–5568, 1994.

Heald, C L., Jacob, D J., Jones, D. B A., Palmer, P I., Logan, J A., Streets, D G., Sachse, G W., Gille, J C., Hoffman, R N., and Nehrkorn, T.: Comparative inverse analysis of satellite (MOPITT) and aircraft (TRACE-P) observations to estimate Asian sources of carbon monoxide, J. Geophys. Res., 109, D23306, http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2004JD005185doi:10.1029/2004JD005185, 2004.

Li, Q B., Jacob, D J., Yantosca, R M., Heald, C L., Singh, H B., Koike, M., Zhao, Y., Sachse, G W., and Streets, D G.: A global three-dimensional model analysis of the atmospheric budgets of HCN and CH3CN: Constraints from aircraft and ground measurements, J. Geophys. Res., 108, 8827, http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2002JD003075doi:10.1029/2002JD003075, 2003.

Li, Q., Palmer, P. I., Pumphrey, H. C., Bernath, P., and Mahieu, E.: What drives the observed variability of HCN in the troposphere and lower stratosphere?, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 9, 8531–8543, http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/acp-9-8531-2009doi:10.5194/acp-9-8531-2009, 2009.

Marland, G., Boden, T A., and Andres, R J.: Global, Regional, And National CO2 Emissions, in Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change, Tech. Rep. 2007. 7346, Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center Oak Ridge National Laboratory, US Department of Energy, Oak Ridge, Tenn., USA, 2007.

Masarie, K A. and Tans, P P.: Extension and integration of atmospheric carbon dioxide data into a globally consistent measurement reocrd, J. Geophys. Res., 100, 522–529, 1995.

Matsueda, H., Inoue, H Y., and Ishii, M.: Aircraft observation of carbon dioxide at 8–13 km altitude over the western Pacific from 1993 to 1999, Tellus B, 54, 1–21, 2002.

Moorthi, S. and Suarez, M J.: Relaxed Arakawa-Schubert: A parameterization of moist convection for general circulation models, Mon. Weather Rev., 120, 978–1002, 1992.

Olsen, S C. and Randerson, J T.: Differences between surface and column atmospheric CO2 and implications for carbon cycle research, J. Geophys. Res., 109, D02301, http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2003JD003968doi:10.1029/2003JD003968, 2004.

Palmer, P I., Suntharalingam, P., Jones, D. B A., Jacob, D J., Streets, D G., Fu, Q., Vay, S A., and Sachse, G W.: Using CO2:CO correlations to improve inverse analyses of carbon fluxes, J. Geophys. Res., 111, D12318, http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2005JD006697doi:10.1029/2005JD006697, 2006.

Palmer, P. I., Barkley, M. P., and Monks, P. S.: Interpreting the variability of space-borne CO2 column-averaged volume mixing ratios over North America using a chemistry transport model, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 8, 5855–5868, http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/acp-8-5855-2008doi:10.5194/acp-8-5855-2008, 2008.

Paris, J.-D., Ciais, P., Nedelec, P., Ramonet, M., Belan, B D., Arshinov, M Y., Golitsyn, G S., Granberg, I., Stohl, A., Cayez, G., Athier, G., Bournard, F., and Cousin, J M.: The YAK-AEROSIB transcontinental aircraft campaigns: new insights on the transport of CO2, CO, and O3 across Siberia, Tellus B, 60, 551–568, 2008.

Paris, J.-D., Ciais, P., Nedelec, P., Stohl, A., Belan, B D., Arshinov, M Y., , Carouge, C., Golitsyn, G S., and Granberg, I G.: New Insights on the Chemical Composition of the Siberian Air Shed from the YAK-AEROSIB Aircraft Campaigns, B. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 91, 625–641, 2010.

Phillips, O L., Aragao, L. E. O C., Lewis, S L., Fisher, J B., Lloyd, J., Lopez-Gonzalez, G., Malhi, Y., Monteagudo, A., Peacock, J., Quesada, C A., van~der Heijden, G., Almeida, S., Amaral, I., Arroyo, L., Aymard, G., Baker, T R., Banki, O., Blanc, L., Bonal, D., Brando, P., Chave, J., Alves~de Oliveira, A C., Cardozo, N D., Czimczik, C I., Feldpausch, T R., Freitas, M A., Gloor, E., Higuchi, N., Jimenez, E., Lloyd, G., Meir, P., Mendoza, C., Morel, A., Neill, D A., Nepstad, D., Patino, S., Cristina~Penuela, M., Prieto, A., Ramirez, F., Schwarz, M., Silva, J., Silveira, M., Thomas, A S., ter Steege, H., Stropp, J., Vasquez, R., Zelazowski, P., Alvarez~Davila, E., Andelman, S., Andrade, A., Chao, K.-J., Erwin, T., Di~Fiore, A., Honorio~C, E., Keeling, H., Killeen, T J., Laurance, W F., Pena~Cruz, A., Pitman, N. C A., Nunez~Vargas, P., Ramirez-Angulo, H., Rudas, A., Salamao, R., Silva, N., Terborgh, J., and Torres-Lezama, A.: Drought Sensitivity of the Amazon Rainforest, Science, 323, 1344–1347, 2009.

Randerson, J T., Thompson, M V., Conway, T J., Fung, I Y., and Field, C B.: The contribution of terrestrial sources and sinks to trends in the seasonal cycle of atmospheric carbon dioxide, Global Biogeochem. Cy., 11, 535–560, 1997.

Rienecker, M., Suarez, M., R Todling, J B., Takacs, L., Liu, H.-C., Gu, W., Sienkiewicz, M., Koster, R., Gelaro, R., Stajner, I., and Nielsen, J.: The GEOS-5 Data Assimilation System - Documentation of Versions 5.0.1, 5.1.0, and 5.2.0, Tech. Rep. Technical Report Series on Global Modeling and Data Assimilation, 27, NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, http://gmao.gsfc.nasa.gov/pubs/tm/, 2008.

Rödenbeck, C., Houweling, S., Gloor, M., and Heimann, M.: CO2 flux history 1982�2001 inferred from atmospheric data using a global inversion of atmospheric transport, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 3, 1919–1964, http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/acp-3-1919-2003doi:10.5194/acp-3-1919-2003, 2003.

Rödenbeck, C., Conway, T. J., and Langenfelds, R. L.: The effect of systematic measurement errors on atmospheric CO2 inversions: a quantitative assessment, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 6, 149–161, http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/acp-6-149-2006doi:10.5194/acp-6-149-2006, 2006.

Shia, R L., Liang, M.-C., Miller, C E., and Yung, Y L.: CO2 in the upper troposphere: influence of stratosphere-troposphere exchange, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L14814, http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2006GL026141doi:10.1029/2006GL026141, 2006.

Singh, H B., Brune, W H., Crawford, J H., Jacob, D J., and Russell, P B.: Overview of the summer 2004 Intercontinental Chemical Transport Experiment North America (INTEX-A), J. Geophys. Res., 111, D24S01, http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2006JD007905doi:10.1029/2006JD007905, 2006.

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. A. Jordan O. Shibistova R. L. Langenfelds L. P. Steele, R. J. Francey and A. S. Dennings: Weak Northern and Strong Tropical Land Carbon Uptake from Vertical Profiles of Atmospheric CO2, Science, 316, 1732–1735, http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1137004doi:10.1126/science.1137004, 2007.

Suntharalingam, P., Randerson, J T., Krakauer, N., J.Jacob, D., and Logan, J A.: The influence of reduced carbon emissions and oxidation on the distribution of atmospheric CO2 : implications for inversion analysis, Global Biogeochem. Cy., 19, GB4003, http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2005GB002466doi:10.1029/2005GB002466, 2005.

Takahashi, T. Sutherland, S. C. Wanninkhof, R. Sweeney, C. Feely, R. A. Chipman, D. W. Hales, B. Friederich, G. Chavez, F. Watson, A. Bakker, D. C. E. Schuster, U. Metzl, N. Yoshikawa-Inoue, H. Ishii, M. Midorikawa, T. Nojiri, Y. Sabine, C. Olafsson, J. Arnarson, Th. S. Tilbrook, B. Johannessen, T. Olsen, A. Bellerby, R. Körtzinger, A. Steinhoff, T. Hoppema, M. de Baar, H. J. W. Wong, C. S., Delille, B., and Bates, N. R.: Global sea-air CO2 flux based on climatological surface ocean $p$CO2, and seasonal biological and temperature effects, Deep Sea Res. II, 49, 1601–1622, 2009.

Thoning, K W., Tans, P P., and Komhyr, W D.: Atmospheric carbon dixoide at Mauna Loa Observatory: 2. Analysis of the NOAA GMCC data, 1974–1985, J. Geophys. Res., 94, 8549–8565, 1989.

van der Werf, G. R., Randerson, J. T., Giglio, L., Collatz, G. J., Kasibhatla, P. S., and Arellano Jr., A. F.: Interannual variability in global biomass burning emissions from 1997 to 2004, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 6, 3423–3441, http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/acp-6-3423-2006doi:10.5194/acp-6-3423-2006, 2006.

Wu, S., Mickley, L J., Jacob, D J., Logan, J A., Yantosca, R M., and (2007), D R.: Why are there large differences between models in global budgets of tropospheric ozone?, J. Geophys. Res., 112, D05302, http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2006JD007801doi:10.1029/2006JD007801, 2007.

Yang, Z. R. A W., 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, http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2007GL029742doi:10.1029/2007GL029742, 2007.

Yevich, R. and Logan, J A.: An assessment of biofuel use and burning of agricultural waste in the developing world, Global Biogeochem. Cy., 17, 1095, http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2002GB001952doi:10.1029/2002GB001952, 2003.

Zhang, G J. and McFarlane, N A.: Sensitivity of climate simulations to the parameterization of cumulus convection in the Canadian Climate Centre general circulation model, Atmos. Ocean, 33(3), 407–446, 1995.