Inverse analysis of fire-induced carbon emission from Equatorial Asia in 2015 with CONTRAIL and NIES-VOS data

Author(s):  
Yosuke Niwa ◽  
Yousuke Sawa ◽  
Hideki Nara ◽  
Toshinobu Machida ◽  
Hidekazu Matsueda ◽  
...  

<p>The fire-induced carbon emission in Equatorial Asia was estimated using the inverse system named NICAM-based Inverse Simulation for Monitoring (NISMON) carbon dioxide (CO<sub>2</sub>). The analysis was performed with the four-dimensional variational method for 2015, when the big El Niño was occurred. NISMON-CO<sub>2</sub> extensively used high-precision atmospheric mole fraction data of CO<sub>2</sub> from the commercial aircraft observation project of Comprehensive Observation Network for TRace gases by AIrLiner (CONTRAIL). Furthermore, independent atmospheric CO<sub>2</sub> and carbon monoxide data from National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) Volunteer Observing Ship (VOS) Programme were used to elucidate the validity of the estimated fire-induced carbon emission. Finally, using both CONTRAIL and NIES-VOS CO<sub>2</sub> data, the inverse analysis indicated 273 Tg C for fire emission during September - October 2015. This two-month-long emission accounts for 75% of the annual total fire emission and 45% of the annual total net carbon flux within the region, indicating that fire emission is a dominant driving force of interannual variations of carbon fluxes in Equatorial Asia. In the future warmer climate condition, Equatorial Asia would experience more severe droughts and have risks for releasing a large amount of carbon into the atmosphere. Therefore, the continuation of these aircraft and shipboard observations is fruitful for reliable monitoring of carbon fluxes in Equatorial Asia.</p>

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yosuke Niwa ◽  
Yousuke Sawa ◽  
Hideki Nara ◽  
Toshinobu Machida ◽  
Hidekazu Matsueda ◽  
...  

Abstract. The inverse analysis was used to estimate the fire carbon emission in Equatorial Asia induced by the big El Niño in 2015. This inverse analysis is unique because it extensively used high-precision atmospheric mole fraction data of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the commercial aircraft observation project. By comparisons with independent shipboard observations, especially carbon monoxide (CO) data, the validity of the estimated fire-induced carbon emission was elucidated. The best estimate, which used both aircraft and shipboard CO2 observations, indicated 273 Tg C for fire emission during September–October 2015. This two-month-long emission accounts for 75 % of the annual total fire emission and 45 % of the annual total net carbon flux within the region, indicating that fire emission is a dominant driving force of interannual variations of carbon fluxes in Equatorial Asia. Several sensitivity experiments demonstrated that aircraft observations could measure fire signals, though they showed a certain degree of sensitivity to prior fire-emission data. The inversions coherently estimated smaller fire emissions than the priors, partially because of the small contribution of peatland fires, indicated by enhancement ratios of CO and CO2 observed by the ship. In the future warmer climate condition, Equatorial Asia would experience more severe droughts and have risks for releasing a large amount of carbon into the atmosphere. Therefore, the continuation of aircraft and shipboard observations is fruitful for reliable monitoring of carbon fluxes in Equatorial Asia.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (12) ◽  
pp. 9455-9473
Author(s):  
Yosuke Niwa ◽  
Yousuke Sawa ◽  
Hideki Nara ◽  
Toshinobu Machida ◽  
Hidekazu Matsueda ◽  
...  

Abstract. Inverse analysis was used to estimate fire carbon emissions in Equatorial Asia induced by the big El Niño event in 2015. This inverse analysis is unique because it extensively used high-precision atmospheric mole fraction data of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the commercial aircraft observation project CONTRAIL. Through comparisons with independent shipboard observations, especially carbon monoxide (CO) data, the validity of the estimated fire-induced carbon emissions was demonstrated. The best estimate, which used both aircraft and shipboard CO2 observations, indicated 273 Tg C for fire emissions from September–October 2015. This 2-month period accounts for 75 % of the annual total fire emissions and 45 % of the annual total net carbon flux within the region, indicating that fire emissions are a dominant driving force of interannual variations of carbon fluxes in Equatorial Asia. Several sensitivity experiments demonstrated that aircraft observations could measure fire signals, though they showed a certain degree of sensitivity to prior fire-emission data. The inversions coherently estimated smaller fire emissions than the prior data, partially because of the small contribution of peatland fires indicated by enhancement ratios of CO and CO2 observed by the ship. In future warmer climate conditions, Equatorial Asia may experience more severe droughts, which risks releasing a large amount of carbon into the atmosphere. Therefore, the continuation of aircraft and shipboard observations is fruitful for reliable monitoring of carbon fluxes in Equatorial Asia.


2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (11) ◽  
pp. 5807-5824 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. F. Zhang ◽  
B. Z. Chen ◽  
I. T. van der Laan-Luijk ◽  
T. Machida ◽  
H. Matsueda ◽  
...  

Abstract. Current estimates of the terrestrial carbon fluxes in Asia show large uncertainties particularly in the boreal and mid-latitudes and in China. In this paper, we present an updated carbon flux estimate for Asia ("Asia" refers to lands as far west as the Urals and is divided into boreal Eurasia, temperate Eurasia and tropical Asia based on TransCom regions) by introducing aircraft CO2 measurements from the CONTRAIL (Comprehensive Observation Network for Trace gases by Airline) program into an inversion modeling system based on the CarbonTracker framework. We estimated the averaged annual total Asian terrestrial land CO2 sink was about −1.56 Pg C yr−1 over the period 2006–2010, which offsets about one-third of the fossil fuel emission from Asia (+4.15 Pg C yr−1). The uncertainty of the terrestrial uptake estimate was derived from a set of sensitivity tests and ranged from −1.07 to −1.80 Pg C yr−1, comparable to the formal Gaussian error of ±1.18 Pg C yr−1 (1-sigma). The largest sink was found in forests, predominantly in coniferous forests (−0.64 ± 0.70 Pg C yr−1) and mixed forests (−0.14 ± 0.27 Pg C yr−1); and the second and third large carbon sinks were found in grass/shrub lands and croplands, accounting for −0.44 ± 0.48 Pg C yr−1 and −0.20 ± 0.48 Pg C yr−1, respectively. The carbon fluxes per ecosystem type have large a priori Gaussian uncertainties, and the reduction of uncertainty based on assimilation of sparse observations over Asia is modest (8.7–25.5%) for most individual ecosystems. The ecosystem flux adjustments follow the detailed a priori spatial patterns by design, which further increases the reliance on the a priori biosphere exchange model. The peak-to-peak amplitude of inter-annual variability (IAV) was 0.57 Pg C yr−1 ranging from −1.71 Pg C yr−1 to −2.28 Pg C yr−1. The IAV analysis reveals that the Asian CO2 sink was sensitive to climate variations, with the lowest uptake in 2010 concurrent with a summer flood and autumn drought and the largest CO2 sink in 2009 owing to favorable temperature and plentiful precipitation conditions. We also found the inclusion of the CONTRAIL data in the inversion modeling system reduced the uncertainty by 11% over the whole Asian region, with a large reduction in the southeast of boreal Eurasia, southeast of temperate Eurasia and most tropical Asian areas.


2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 27597-27639 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. F. Zhang ◽  
B. Z. Chen ◽  
I. T. van der Laan-Luijkx ◽  
T. Machida ◽  
H. Matsueda ◽  
...  

Abstract. Current estimates of the terrestrial carbon fluxes in Asia ("Asia" refers to lands as far west as the Urals and is divided into Boreal Eurasia, Temperate Eurasia and tropical Asia based on TransCom regions) show large uncertainties particularly in the boreal and mid-latitudes and in China. In this paper, we present an updated carbon flux estimate for Asia by introducing aircraft CO2 measurements from the CONTRAIL (Comprehensive Observation Network for Trace gases by Airline) program into an inversion modeling system based on the CarbonTracker framework. We estimated the averaged annual total Asian terrestrial land CO2 sink was about −1.56 Pg C yr−1 over the period 2006–2010, which offsets about one-third of the fossil fuel emission from Asia (+4.15 Pg C yr−1). The uncertainty of the terrestrial uptake estimate was derived from a set of sensitivity tests and ranged from −1.07 to −1.80 Pg C yr−1, comparable to the formal Gaussian error of ±1.18 Pg C yr−1 (1-sigma). The largest sink was found in forests, predominantly in coniferous forests (−0.64 Pg C yr−1) and mixed forests (−0.14 Pg C yr−1); and the second and third large carbon sinks were found in grass/shrub lands and crop lands, accounting for −0.44 Pg C yr−1 and −0.20 Pg C yr−1, respectively. The peak-to-peak amplitude of inter-annual variability (IAV) was 0.57 Pg C yr−1 ranging from −1.71 Pg C yr−1 to −2.28 Pg C yr−1. The IAV analysis reveals that the Asian CO2 sink was sensitive to climate variations, with the lowest uptake in 2010 concurrent with summer flood/autumn drought and the largest CO2 sink in 2009 owing to favorable temperature and plentiful precipitation conditions. We also found the inclusion of the CONTRAIL data in the inversion modeling system reduced the uncertainty by 11% over the whole Asian region, with a large reduction in the southeast of Boreal Eurasia, southeast of Temperate Eurasia and most Tropical Asian areas.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhe Jin ◽  
Xiangjun Tian ◽  
Rui Han ◽  
Yu Fu ◽  
Xin Li ◽  
...  

Abstract. Accurate assessment of the various sources and sinks of carbon dioxide (CO2), especially terrestrial ecosystem and ocean fluxes with high uncertainties, is important for understanding of the global carbon cycle, supporting the formulation of climate policies, and projecting future climate change. Satellite retrievals of the column-averaged dry air mole fractions of CO2 (XCO2) are being widely used to improve carbon flux estimation due to their broad spatial coverage. However, there is no consensus on the robust estimates of regional fluxes. In this study, we present a global and regional resolved terrestrial ecosystem carbon flux (NEE) and ocean carbon flux dataset for 2015–2019. The dataset was generated using the Tan-Tracker inversion system by assimilating Observing Carbon Observatory 2 (OCO-2) column CO2 retrievals. The posterior NEE and ocean carbon fluxes were comprehensively validated by comparing posterior simulated CO2 concentrations with OCO-2 independent retrievals and Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON) measurements. The validation showed that posterior carbon fluxes significantly improved the modelling of atmospheric CO2 concentrations, with global mean biases of 0.33 ppm against OCO-2 retrievals and 0.12 ppm against TCCON measurements. We described the characteristics of the dataset at global, regional, and Tibetan Plateau scales in terms of the carbon budget, annual and seasonal variations, and spatial distribution. The posterior 5-year annual mean global atmospheric CO2 growth rate was 5.35 PgC yr−1, which was within the uncertainty of the Global Carbon Budget 2020 estimate (5.49 PgC yr−1). The posterior annual mean NEE and ocean carbon fluxes were −4.07 and −3.33 PgC yr−1, respectively. Regional fluxes were analysed based on TransCom partitioning. All 11 land regions acted as carbon sinks, except for Tropical South America, which was almost neutral. The strongest carbon sinks were located in Boreal Asia, followed by Temperate Asia and North Africa. The entire Tibetan Plateau ecosystem was estimated as a carbon sink, taking up −49.52 TgC yr−1 on average, with the strongest sink occurring in eastern alpine meadows. These results indicate that our dataset captures surface carbon fluxes well and provides insight into the global carbon cycle. The dataset can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.11888/Meteoro.tpdc.271317 (Jin et al., 2021).


2007 ◽  
Vol 4 (6) ◽  
pp. 4697-4756 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. M. P. Bruhwiler ◽  
A. M. Michalak ◽  
P. P. Tans

Abstract. We discuss the spatial and temporal resolution of monthly carbon flux estimates for the period 1983–2002 using a fixed-lag Kalman Smoother technique with a global chemical transport model, and the GLOBALVIEW data product. The observational network has expanded substantially over this period, and we the improvement in the constraints provided flux estimates by observations for the 1990's in comparison to the 1980's. The estimated uncertainties also decrease as observational coverage expands. In this study, we use the Globalview data product for a network that changes every 5 y, rather than using a small number of continually-operating sites (fewer observational constraints) or a large number of sites, some of which may consist almost entirely of extrapolated data. We show that the discontinuities resulting from network changes reflect uncertainty due to a sparse and variable network. This uncertainty effectively limits the resolution of trends in carbon fluxes. The ability of the inversion to distinguish, or resolve, carbon fluxes at various spatial scales is examined using a diagnostic known as the resolution kernel. We find that the global partition between land and ocean fluxes is well-resolved even for the very sparse network of the 1980's, although prior information makes a significant contribution to the resolution. The ability to distinguish zonal average fluxes has improved significantly since the 1980's, especially for the tropics, where the zonal ocean and land biosphere fluxes can be distinguished. Care must be taken when interpreting zonal average fluxes, however, since the lack of air samples for some regions in a zone may result in a large influence from prior flux estimates for these regions. We show that many of the TransCom 3 source regions are distinguishable throughout the period over which estimates are produced. Examples are Boreal and Temperate North America. The resolution of fluxes from Europe and Australia has greatly improved since the 1990's. Other regions, notably Tropical South America and the Equatorial Atlantic remain practically unresolved. Comparisons of the average seasonal cycle of the estimated carbon fluxes with the seasonal cycle of the prior flux estimates reveals a large adjustment of the summertime uptake of carbon for Boreal Eurasia, and an earlier onset of springtime uptake for Temperate North America. In addition, significantly larger seasonal cycles are obtained for some ocean regions, such as the Northern Ocean, North Pacific, North Atlantic and Western Equatorial Pacific, regions that appear to be well-resolved by the inversion.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xianming Dou ◽  
Yongguo Yang ◽  
Jinhui Luo

Approximating the complex nonlinear relationships that dominate the exchange of carbon dioxide fluxes between the biosphere and atmosphere is fundamentally important for addressing the issue of climate change. The progress of machine learning techniques has offered a number of useful tools for the scientific community aiming to gain new insights into the temporal and spatial variation of different carbon fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems. In this study, adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) and generalized regression neural network (GRNN) models were developed to predict the daily carbon fluxes in three boreal forest ecosystems based on eddy covariance (EC) measurements. Moreover, a comparison was made between the modeled values derived from these models and those of traditional artificial neural network (ANN) and support vector machine (SVM) models. These models were also compared with multiple linear regression (MLR). Several statistical indicators, including coefficient of determination (R2), Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE), bias error (Bias) and root mean square error (RMSE) were utilized to evaluate the performance of the applied models. The results showed that the developed machine learning models were able to account for the most variance in the carbon fluxes at both daily and hourly time scales in the three stands and they consistently and substantially outperformed the MLR model for both daily and hourly carbon flux estimates. It was demonstrated that the ANFIS and ANN models provided similar estimates in the testing period with an approximate value of R2 = 0.93, NSE = 0.91, Bias = 0.11 g C m−2 day−1 and RMSE = 1.04 g C m−2 day−1 for daily gross primary productivity, 0.94, 0.82, 0.24 g C m−2 day−1 and 0.72 g C m−2 day−1 for daily ecosystem respiration, and 0.79, 0.75, 0.14 g C m−2 day−1 and 0.89 g C m−2 day−1 for daily net ecosystem exchange, and slightly outperformed the GRNN and SVM models. In practical terms, however, the newly developed models (ANFIS and GRNN) are more robust and flexible, and have less parameters needed for selection and optimization in comparison with traditional ANN and SVM models. Consequently, they can be used as valuable tools to estimate forest carbon fluxes and fill the missing carbon flux data during the long-term EC measurements.


Coatings ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 1075
Author(s):  
Haojie Wang ◽  
Jing Liu ◽  
Yong Tian ◽  
Zhaodong Wang ◽  
Xiaoxue An

Low-pressure vacuum carburizing adopts a pulse process mode to improve the carburizing efficiency and reduces gas and energy consumption. Carbon flux is the key to accurately control the time of strong infiltration and diffusion in each pulse. In order to obtain the carbon fluxes with various materials under diffident carburizing process conditions, an evenly segmented carbon flux method is proposed. A systematic study with each model using different materials (12Cr2Ni4A, 16Cr3NiWMoVNbE, and 18Cr2Ni4WA represent different initial carbon concentrations and different alloy compositions), carburizing temperatures, and carburizing pressures to determine the effect of these conditions on carbon flux is conducted. Compared with traditional segmented carbon flux method, an evenly segmented carbon flux method can predict the actual carbon flux more precisely and effectively in order to finely control the pulse carburization process. The paper also indicates that carbon fluxes increase with the increase of pressure. The optimal carburization pressure for low-pressure vacuum carburization is 300 Pa. Raising the carburization temperature to 980 °C instead of 920 °C can increase effective carbon flux by more than 30%. Among the material compositions, alloy content has the biggest impact over the carbon, initial carbon concentration the second, and saturated carbon concentration the third biggest impact.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 485-503 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Rixen ◽  
Birgit Gaye ◽  
Kay-Christian Emeis ◽  
Venkitasubramani Ramaswamy

Abstract. Data obtained from long-term sediment trap experiments in the Indian Ocean in conjunction with satellite observations illustrate the influence of primary production and the ballast effect on organic carbon flux into the deep sea. They suggest that primary production is the main control on the spatial variability of organic carbon fluxes at most of our study sites in the Indian Ocean, except at sites influenced by river discharges. At these sites the spatial variability of organic carbon flux is influenced by lithogenic matter content. To quantify the impact of lithogenic matter on the organic carbon flux, the densities of the main ballast minerals, their flux rates and seawater properties were used to calculate sinking speeds of material intercepted by sediment traps. Sinking speeds in combination with satellite-derived export production rates allowed us to compute organic carbon fluxes. Flux calculations imply that lithogenic matter ballast increases organic carbon fluxes at all sampling sites in the Indian Ocean by enhancing sinking speeds and reducing the time of organic matter respiration in the water column. We calculated that lithogenic matter content in aggregates and pellets enhances organic carbon flux rates on average by 45 % and by up to 62 % at trap locations in the river-influenced regions of the Indian Ocean. Such a strong lithogenic matter ballast effect explains the fact that organic carbon fluxes are higher in the low-productive southern Java Sea compared to the high-productive western Arabian Sea. It also implies that land use changes and the associated enhanced transport of lithogenic matter from land into the ocean may significantly affect the CO2 uptake of the organic carbon pump in the receiving ocean areas.


2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 1347-1389
Author(s):  
R. Séférian ◽  
L. Bopp ◽  
D. Swingedouw ◽  
J. Servonnat

Abstract. Several recent observation-based studies suggest that ocean anthropogenic carbon uptake has slowed down due to the impact of anthropogenic forced climate change. However, it remains unclear if detected changes over the recent time period can really be attributed to anthropogenic climate change or to natural climate variability (internal plus naturally forced variability). One large uncertainty arises from the lack of knowledge on ocean carbon flux natural variability at the decadal time scales. To gain more insights into decadal time scales, we have examined the internal variability of ocean carbon fluxes in a 1000-yr long preindustrial simulation performed with the Earth System Model IPSL-CM5A-LR. Our analysis shows that ocean carbon fluxes exhibit low-frequency oscillations that emerge from their year-to-year variability in the North Atlantic, the North Pacific, and the Southern Ocean. In our model, a 20-yr mode of variability in the North Atlantic air-sea carbon flux is driven by sea surface temperature variability and accounts for ~40% of the interannual regional variance. The North Pacific and the Southern Ocean carbon fluxes are also characterized by decadal to multi-decadal modes of variability (10 to 50 yr) that account for 30–40% of the interannual regional variance. But these modes are driven by the vertical supply of dissolved inorganic carbon through the variability of Ekman-induced upwelling and deep-mixing events. Differences in drivers of regional modes of variability stem from the coupling between ocean dynamics variability and the ocean carbon distribution, which is set by large-scale secular ocean circulation.


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