ACP Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ACP 1680-7324 Copernicus GmbH Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/acp-12-7767-2012 Technical Note: Latitude-time variations of atmospheric column-average dry air mole fractions of CO<sub>2</sub>, CH<sub>4</sub> and N<sub>2</sub>O Saito R. 1 Patra P. K. 1 Deutscher N. 2 6 Wunch D. 3 Ishijima K. 1 Sherlock V. 4 Blumenstock T. 5 Dohe S. 5 Griffith D. 6 Hase F. 5 Heikkinen P. 7 Kyrö E. 7 Macatangay R. 6 Mendonca J. 8 Messerschmidt J. 3 Morino I. 9 Notholt J. 2 Rettinger M. 10 Strong K. 8 Sussmann R. 10 Warneke T. 2 Research Institute for Global Change, JAMSTEC, Yokohama, 236-0001, Japan Institute of Environmental Physics, University of Bremen, 28359 Bremen, Germany California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), Wellington 6021, New Zealand IMK-ASF, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), 76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany School of Chemistry, University of Wollongong, NSW, 2522, Australia FMI-Arctic Research Center, Tähteläntie 62, 99600, Sodankylä, Finland Department of Physics, University of Toronto, Ontario, M5S 1A7, Canada National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), Tsukuba, 305–8506, Japan IMK-IFU, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), 82467 Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany 28 08 2012 12 16 7767 7777 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/12/7767/2012/acp-12-7767-2012.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/12/7767/2012/acp-12-7767-2012.pdf

We present a comparison of an atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM)-based chemistry-transport model (ACTM) simulation with total column measurements of CO<sub>2</sub>, CH<sub>4</sub> and N<sub>2</sub>O from the Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON). The model is able to capture observed trends, seasonal cycles and inter hemispheric gradients at most sampled locations for all three species. The model-observation agreements are best for CO<sub>2</sub>, because the simulation uses fossil fuel inventories and an inverse model estimate of non-fossil fuel fluxes. The ACTM captures much of the observed seasonal variability in CO<sub>2</sub> and N<sub>2</sub>O total columns (~81 % variance, <i>R</i>>0.9 between ACTM and TCCON for 19 out of 22 cases). These results suggest that the transport processes in troposphere and stratosphere are well represented in ACTM. Thus the poor correlation between simulated and observed CH<sub>4</sub> total columns, particularly at tropical and extra-tropical sites, have been attributed to the uncertainties in surface emissions and loss by hydroxyl radicals. While the upward-looking total column measurements of CO<sub>2</sub> contains surface flux signals at various spatial and temporal scales, the N<sub>2</sub>O measurements are strongly affected by the concentration variations in the upper troposphere and stratosphere.

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