scholarly journals Technical Note: A new coupled system for global-to-regional downscaling of CO<sub>2</sub> concentration estimation

2009 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 23187-23210 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Trusilova ◽  
C. Rödenbeck ◽  
C. Gerbig ◽  
M. Heimann

Abstract. We introduce a global-to-regional nesting scheme for atmospheric transport models that are used for simulating concentrations of green house gases from globally distributed surface fluxes. The coupled system of the regional Stochastic Time-Inverted Lagrangian Transport (STILT) model and the global atmospheric transport model (TM3) is designed to resolve atmospheric trace gas concentrations at high temporal and spatial resolutions in a specified domain e.g. for regional inverse applications. The nesting technique used for the coupling is based on a decomposition of the atmospheric concentration signal into a far-field and a near-field contribution that allows global and regional models being of different type, i.e. Eulerian (grid) and Lagrangian (trajectory). For illustrating the performance of the coupled TM3-STILT system we compare simulated mixing ratios of carbon dioxide with available observations at 10 sites in Europe. For all chosen sites the TM3-STILT provided higher correlations between the modelled and the measured time series than the TM3 global model. The autocorrelation analysis showed that in contrast to the global model TM3-STILT model is capable to represent the variability of the measured tracer concentrations.

2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 3205-3213 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Trusilova ◽  
C. Rödenbeck ◽  
C. Gerbig ◽  
M. Heimann

Abstract. We introduce a global-to-regional nesting scheme for atmospheric transport models used in simulating concentrations of green house gases from globally distributed surface fluxes. The coupled system of the regional Stochastic Time-Inverted Lagrangian Transport (STILT) model and the global atmospheric transport model (TM3) is designed to resolve atmospheric trace gas concentrations at high temporal and spatial resolutions in a specified domain e.g. for regional inverse applications. The nesting technique used for the coupling is based on a decomposition of the atmospheric concentration signal into a far-field and a near-field contribution enabling the usage of different model types for global (Eulerian) and regional (Lagrangian) scales. For illustrating the performance of the coupled TM3-STILT system we compare simulated mixing ratios of carbon dioxide with available observations at 10 sites in Europe. For all chosen sites the TM3-STILT provided higher correlations between the modelled and the measured time series than the TM3 global model. Autocorrelation analysis demonstrated that the TM3-STILT model captured temporal variability of measured tracer concentrations better than TM3 at most sites.


2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 7755-7779
Author(s):  
A. M. Michalak

Abstract. Inverse modeling methods are now commonly used for estimating surface fluxes of carbon dioxide, using atmospheric mass fraction measurements combined with a numerical atmospheric transport model. The geostatistical approach to flux estimation takes advantage of the spatial and/or temporal correlation in fluxes and does not require prior flux estimates. In this work, a geostatistical implementation of a fixed-lag Kalman smoother is developed to improve the computational efficiency of the inverse problem. This method makes it feasible to perform multi-year inversions, at fine resolutions, and with large amounts of data. The new method is applied to the recovery of global gridscale carbon dioxide fluxes for 1997 to 2001 using pseudodata representative of a subset of the NOAA-ESRL Cooperative Air Sampling Network.


2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (22) ◽  
pp. 6789-6799 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. M. Michalak

Abstract. Inverse modeling methods are now commonly used for estimating surface fluxes of carbon dioxide, using atmospheric mass fraction measurements combined with a numerical atmospheric transport model. The geostatistical approach to flux estimation takes advantage of the spatial and/or temporal correlation in fluxes and does not require prior flux estimates. In this work, a previously-developed, computationally-efficient, fixed-lag Kalman smoother is adapted for application with a geostatistical approach to atmospheric inversions. This method makes it feasible to perform multi-year geostatistical inversions, at fine resolutions, and with large amounts of data. The new method is applied to the recovery of global gridscale carbon dioxide fluxes for 1997 to 2001 using pseudodata representative of a subset of the NOAA-ESRL Cooperative Air Sampling Network.


2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 1707-1724 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. M. Bréon ◽  
G. Broquet ◽  
V. Puygrenier ◽  
F. Chevallier ◽  
I. Xueref-Remy ◽  
...  

Abstract. Atmospheric concentration measurements are used to adjust the daily to monthly budget of fossil fuel CO2 emissions of the Paris urban area from the prior estimates established by the Airparif local air quality agency. Five atmospheric monitoring sites are available, including one at the top of the Eiffel Tower. The atmospheric inversion is based on a Bayesian approach, and relies on an atmospheric transport model with a spatial resolution of 2 km with boundary conditions from a global coarse grid transport model. The inversion adjusts prior knowledge about the anthropogenic and biogenic CO2 fluxes from the Airparif inventory and an ecosystem model, respectively, with corrections at a temporal resolution of 6 h, while keeping the spatial distribution from the emission inventory. These corrections are based on assumptions regarding the temporal autocorrelation of prior emissions uncertainties within the daily cycle, and from day to day. The comparison of the measurements against the atmospheric transport simulation driven by the a priori CO2 surface fluxes shows significant differences upwind of the Paris urban area, which suggests a large and uncertain contribution from distant sources and sinks to the CO2 concentration variability. This contribution advocates that the inversion should aim at minimising model–data misfits in upwind–downwind gradients rather than misfits in mole fractions at individual sites. Another conclusion of the direct model–measurement comparison is that the CO2 variability at the top of the Eiffel Tower is large and poorly represented by the model for most wind speeds and directions. The model's inability to reproduce the CO2 variability at the heart of the city makes such measurements ill-suited for the inversion. This and the need to constrain the budgets for the whole city suggests the assimilation of upwind–downwind mole fraction gradients between sites at the edge of the urban area only. The inversion significantly improves the agreement between measured and modelled concentration gradients. Realistic emissions are retrieved for two 30-day periods and suggest a significant overestimate by the AirParif inventory. Similar inversions over longer periods are necessary for a proper evaluation of the optimised CO2 emissions against independent data.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Hagemann ◽  
Ute Daewel ◽  
Volker Matthias ◽  
Tobias Stacke

&lt;p&gt;River discharge and the associated nutrient loads are important factors that influence the functioning of the marine ecosystem. Lateral inflows from land carrying fresh, nutrient-rich water determine coastal physical conditions and nutrient concentration and, hence, dominantly influence primary production in the system. Since this forms the basis of the trophic food web, riverine nutrient concentrations impact the variability of the whole coastal ecosystem. This process becomes even more relevant in systems like the Baltic Sea, which is almost decoupled from the open ocean and land-borne nutrients play a major role for ecosystem productivity on seasonal up to decadal time scales.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;#160;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In order to represent the effects of climate or land use change on nutrient availability, a coupled system approach is required to simulate the transport of nutrients across Earth system compartments. This comprises their transport within the atmosphere, the deposition and human application at the surface, the lateral transport over the land surface into the ocean and their dynamics and transformation in the marine ecosystem. In our study, we combine these processes in a modelling chain within the GCOAST (Geesthacht Coupled cOAstal model SysTem) framework for the northern European region. This modelling chain comprises:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;#160;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;Simulation of emissions, atmospheric transport and deposition with the chemistry transport model CMAQ at 36 km grid resolution using atmospheric forcing from the coastDat3 data that have been generated with the regional climate model COSMO-CLM over Europe at 0.11&amp;#176; resolution using ERA-Interim re-analyses as boundary conditions&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Simulation of inert processes at the land surface with the global hydrology model HydroPy (former MPI-HM), i.e. considering total nitrogen without any chemical reactions&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Riverine transport with the Hydrological Discharge (HD) model at 0.0833&amp;#176; spatial resolution&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Simulation of the North Sea and Baltic Sea ecosystems with 3D coupled physical-biogeochemical NPZD-model ECOSMO II at about 10 km resolution&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;#160;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;We will present first results and their validation from this exercise.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;#160;&lt;/p&gt;


2004 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 1125-1137 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. M. Hansen ◽  
J. H. Christensen ◽  
J. Brandt ◽  
L. M. Frohn ◽  
C. Geels

Abstract. The Danish Eulerian Hemispheric Model (DEHM) is a 3-D dynamical atmospheric transport model originally developed to describe the atmospheric transport of sulphur into the Arctic. A new version of the model, DEHM-POP, developed to study the atmospheric transport and environmental fate of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) is presented. During environmental cycling, POPs can be deposited and re-emitted several times before reaching a final destination. A description of the exchange processes between the land/ocean surfaces and the atmosphere is included in the model to account for this multi-hop transport. The α-isomer of the pesticide hexachlorocyclohexane (α-HCH) is used as tracer in the model development. The structure of the model and processes included are described in detail. The results from a model simulation showing the atmospheric transport for the years 1991 to 1998 are presented and evaluated against measurements. The annual averaged atmospheric concentration of α-HCH for the 1990s is well described by the model; however, the shorter-term average concentration for most of the stations is not well captured. This indicates that the present simple surface description needs to be refined to get a better description of the air-surface exchange processes of POPs.


2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 14587-14637 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Berchet ◽  
I. Pison ◽  
F. Chevallier ◽  
J.-D. Paris ◽  
P. Bousquet ◽  
...  

Abstract. Eight surface observation sites providing quasi-continuous measurements of atmospheric methane mixing ratios have been operated since the mid-2000's in Siberia. For the first time in a single work, we assimilate all of these in situ data in an atmospheric inversion. Our objective is to quantify methane surface fluxes from anthropogenic and wetland sources at the meso-scale in the Siberian Lowlands for the year 2010. To do so, we first inquire into the way the inversion uses the observations and the fluxes are constrained by the observation sites. As atmospheric inversions at the meso-scale suffer from mis-quantified sources of uncertainties, we follow recent innovations in inversion techniques and use a new inversion approach which quantifies the uncertainties more objectively than the previous inversions. We find that, due to errors in the representation of the atmospheric transport and redundant pieces of information, only one observation every few days is found valuable by the inversion. The remaining high-resolution signals are representative of very local emission patterns. An analysis of the use of information by the inversion also reveals that the observation sites constrain methane emissions within a radius of 500 km. More observation sites are necessary to constrain the whole Siberian Lowlands. Still, the fluxes within the constrained areas are quantified with objectified uncertainties. At the end, the tolerance intervals for posterior methane fluxes are of roughly 20% (resp. 50%) of the fluxes for anthropogenic (resp. wetland) sources. About 50–70% of emissions are constrained by the inversion on average on an annual basis. Extrapolating the figures on the constrained areas to the whole Siberian Lowlands, we find a regional methane budget of 5–28 Tg CH4 for the year 2010, i.e. 1–5% of the global methane emissions. As very few in situ observations are available in the region of interest, observations of methane total columns from the Greenhouse Gas Observing SATellite (GOSAT) are used for the evaluation of the inversion results, but they exhibit marginal signal from the fluxes within the region of interest.


2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 2307-2362 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. L. Thompson ◽  
P. K. Patra ◽  
K. Ishijima ◽  
E. Saikawa ◽  
M. Corazza ◽  
...  

Abstract. We present a comparison of chemistry-transport models (TransCom-N2O) to examine the importance of atmospheric transport and surface fluxes on the variability of N2O mixing ratios in the troposphere. Six different models and two model variants participated in the inter-comparison and simulations were made for the period 2006 to 2009. In addition to N2O, simulations of CFC-12 and SF6 were made by a subset of four of the models to provide information on the models proficiency in stratosphere-troposphere exchange (STE) and meridional transport, respectively. The same prior emissions were used by all models to restrict differences among models to transport and chemistry alone. Four different N2O flux scenarios totalling between 14 and 17 Tg N yr−1 (for 2005) globally were also compared. The modelled N2O mixing ratios were assessed against observations from in-situ stations, discrete air sampling networks, and aircraft. All models adequately captured the large-scale patterns of N2O and the vertical gradient from the troposphere to the stratosphere and most models also adequately captured the N2O tropospheric growth rate. However, all models underestimated the inter-hemispheric N2O gradient by at least 0.33 ppb (equivalent to 1.5 Tg N), which, even after accounting for an overestimate of emissions in the Southern Ocean of circa 1.0 Tg N, points to a likely underestimate of the Northern Hemisphere source by up to 0.5 Tg N and/or an overestimate of STE in the Northern Hemisphere. Comparison with aircraft data reveal that the models overestimate the amplitude of the N2O seasonal cycle at Hawaii (21° N, 158° W) below circa 6000 m, suggesting an overestimate of the importance of stratosphere to troposphere transport in the lower troposphere at this latitude. In the Northern Hemisphere, most of the models that provided CFC-12 simulations captured the phase of the CFC-12, seasonal cycle, indicating a reasonable representation of the timing of STE. However, for N2O all models simulated a too early minimum by 2 to 3 months owing to errors in the seasonal cycle in the prior soil emissions, which is still not adequately represented by terrestrial biosphere models. In the Southern Hemisphere, most models failed to capture the N2O and CFC-12 seasonality at Cape Grim, Tasmania, and all failed at the South Pole, whereas for SF6, all models could capture the seasonality at all sites, suggesting that there are large errors in modeled vertical transport in high southern latitudes.


2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (17) ◽  
pp. 13173-13196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shelley C. van der Graaf ◽  
Enrico Dammers ◽  
Martijn Schaap ◽  
Jan Willem Erisman

Abstract. Atmospheric levels of reactive nitrogen have increased substantially during the last century resulting in increased nitrogen deposition to ecosystems, causing harmful effects such as soil acidification, reduction in plant biodiversity and eutrophication in lakes and the ocean. Recent developments in the use of atmospheric remote sensing enabled us to resolve concentration fields of NH3 with larger spatial coverage. These observations may be used to improve the quantification of NH3 deposition. In this paper, we use a relatively simple, data-driven method to derive dry deposition fluxes and surface concentrations of NH3 for Europe and for the Netherlands. The aim of this paper is to determine the applicability and the limitations of this method for NH3. Space-born observations of the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) and the LOTOS-EUROS atmospheric transport model are used. The original modelled dry NH3 deposition flux from LOTOS-EUROS and the flux inferred from IASI are compared to indicate areas with large discrepancies between the two. In these areas, potential model or emission improvements are needed. The largest differences in derived dry deposition fluxes occur in large parts of central Europe, where the satellite-observed NH3 concentrations are higher than the modelled ones, and in Switzerland, northern Italy (Po Valley) and southern Turkey, where the modelled NH3 concentrations are higher than the satellite-observed ones. A sensitivity analysis of eight model input parameters important for NH3 dry deposition modelling showed that the IASI-derived dry NH3 deposition fluxes may vary from ∼ 20 % up to ∼50 % throughout Europe. Variations in the NH3 dry deposition velocity led to the largest deviations in the IASI-derived dry NH3 deposition flux and should be focused on in the future. A comparison of NH3 surface concentrations with in situ measurements of several established networks – the European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (EMEP), Meetnet Ammoniak in Natuurgebieden (MAN) and Landelijk Meetnet Luchtkwaliteit (LML) – showed no significant or consistent improvement in the IASI-derived NH3 surface concentrations compared to the originally modelled NH3 surface concentrations from LOTOS-EUROS. It is concluded that the IASI-derived NH3 deposition fluxes do not show strong improvements compared to modelled NH3 deposition fluxes and there is a future need for better, more robust, methods to derive NH3 dry deposition fluxes.


2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (7) ◽  
pp. 9647-9703 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. M. Bréon ◽  
G. Broquet ◽  
V. Puygrenier ◽  
F. Chevallier ◽  
I. Xueref-Rémy ◽  
...  

Abstract. Atmospheric concentration measurements are used to adjust the daily to monthly budget of CO2 emissions from the AirParif inventory of the Paris agglomeration. We use 5 atmospheric monitoring sites including one at the top of the Eiffel tower. The atmospheric inversion is based on a Bayesian approach, and relies on an atmospheric transport model with a spatial resolution of 2 km with boundary conditions from a global coarse grid transport model. The inversion tool adjusts the CO2 fluxes (anthropogenic and biogenic) with a temporal resolution of 6 h, assuming temporal correlation of emissions uncertainties within the daily cycle and from day to day, while keeping the a priori spatial distribution from the emission inventory. The inversion significantly improves the agreement between measured and modelled concentrations. However, the amplitude of the atmospheric transport errors is often large compared to the CO2 gradients between the sites that are used to estimate the fluxes, in particular for the Eiffel tower station. In addition, we sometime observe large model-measurement differences upwind from the Paris agglomeration, which confirms the large and poorly constrained contribution from distant sources and sinks included in the prescribed CO2 boundary conditions These results suggest that (i) the Eiffel measurements at 300 m above ground cannot be used with the current system and (ii) the inversion shall rely on the measured upwind-downwind gradients rather than the raw mole fraction measurements. With such setup, realistic emissions are retrieved for two 30 day periods. Similar inversions over longer periods are necessary for a proper evaluation of the results.


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