scholarly journals The CarbonTracker Data Assimilation System for CO<sub>2</sub> and <i>δ</i><sup>13</sup>C (CTDAS-C13 v1.0): retrieving information on land–atmosphere exchange processes

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 283-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivar R. van der Velde ◽  
John B. Miller ◽  
Michiel K. van der Molen ◽  
Pieter P. Tans ◽  
Bruce H. Vaughn ◽  
...  

Abstract. To improve our understanding of the global carbon balance and its representation in terrestrial biosphere models, we present here a first dual-species application of the CarbonTracker Data Assimilation System (CTDAS). The system's modular design allows for assimilating multiple atmospheric trace gases simultaneously to infer exchange fluxes at the Earth surface. In the prototype discussed here, we interpret signals recorded in observed carbon dioxide (CO2) along with observed ratios of its stable isotopologues 13CO2∕12CO2 (δ13C). The latter is in particular a valuable tracer to untangle CO2 exchange from land and oceans. Potentially, it can also be used as a proxy for continent-wide drought stress in plants, largely because the ratio of 13CO2 and 12CO2 molecules removed from the atmosphere by plants is dependent on moisture conditions.The dual-species CTDAS system varies the net exchange fluxes of both 13CO2 and CO2 in ocean and terrestrial biosphere models to create an ensemble of 13CO2 and CO2 fluxes that propagates through an atmospheric transport model. Based on differences between observed and simulated 13CO2 and CO2 mole fractions (and thus δ13C) our Bayesian minimization approach solves for weekly adjustments to both net fluxes and isotopic terrestrial discrimination that minimizes the difference between observed and estimated mole fractions.With this system, we are able to estimate changes in terrestrial δ13C exchange on seasonal and continental scales in the Northern Hemisphere where the observational network is most dense. Our results indicate a decrease in stomatal conductance on a continent-wide scale during a severe drought. These changes could only be detected after applying combined atmospheric CO2 and δ13C constraints as done in this work. The additional constraints on surface CO2 exchange from δ13C observations neither affected the estimated carbon fluxes nor compromised our ability to match observed CO2 variations. The prototype presented here can be of great benefit not only to study the global carbon balance but also to potentially function as a data-driven diagnostic to assess multiple leaf-level exchange parameterizations in carbon-climate models that influence the CO2, water, isotope, and energy balance.

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivar R. van der Velde ◽  
John B. Miller ◽  
Michiel K. van der Molen ◽  
Pieter P. Tans ◽  
Bruce H. Vaughn ◽  
...  

Abstract. To improve our understanding of the global carbon balance and its representation in terrestrial biosphere models we present here a first multi-species application of the CarbonTracker Data Assimilation System (CTDAS). The system's modular design allows for assimilating multiple atmospheric trace gases simultaneously to infer exchange fluxes at the Earth surface. In the prototype discussed here we interpret signals recorded in observed carbon dioxide (CO2) along with observed ratios of its stable isotopologues 13CO2/12CO2 (δ13C). The latter is in particular a valuable tracer to untangle CO2 exchange from land and oceans. Potentially, it can also be used as a proxy for continent-wide drought stress in plants, largely because the ratio of 13CO2 and 12CO2 molecules removed from the atmosphere by plants is dependent on moisture conditions. The multi-species CTDAS system varies the net exchange fluxes of both 13CO2 and CO2 in ocean and terrestrial biosphere models to create an ensemble of 13CO2 and CO2 fluxes that propagates through an atmospheric transport model. Based on differences between observed and simulated 13CO2 and CO2 mole fractions (and thus δ13C) our Bayesian minimization approach solves for weekly adjustments to both net fluxes and isotopic terrestrial discrimination that minimizes the difference between observed and estimated mole fractions. With this system we are able to estimate changes in terrestrial δ13C exchange on seasonal and continental scales in the Northern hemisphere where the observational network is most dense. Our results indicate a decrease in stomatal conductance on a continent-wide scale during a severe drought. These changes could only be detected after applying combined atmospheric CO2 and δ13C constraints as done in this work. The additional constraints on surface CO2 exchange from δ13C observations neither affected the estimated carbon fluxes, nor compromised our ability to match observed CO2 variations. The prototype presented here can be of great benefit not only to study the global carbon balance but potentially also to function as a data driven diagnostic to assess multiple leaf-level exchange parameterizations in carbon-climate models that influence the CO2, water, isotope, and energy balance.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. J. Schürmann ◽  
T. Kaminski ◽  
C. Köstler ◽  
N. Carvalhais ◽  
M. Voßbeck ◽  
...  

Abstract. We describe the Max Planck Institute Carbon Cycle Data Assimilation System (MPI-CCDAS) built around the tangent-linear version of the land surface scheme of the MPI-Earth System Model v1 (JSBACH). The simulated terrestrial biosphere processes (phenology and carbon balance) were constrained by observations of the fraction of photosynthetically active radiation (TIP-FAPAR product) and by observations of atmospheric CO2 at a global set of monitoring stations for the years 2005–2009. The system successfully, and computationally efficiently, improved average foliar area and northern extra-tropical seasonality of foliar area when constrained by TIP-FAPAR. Global net and gross carbon fluxes were improved when constrained by atmospheric CO2, although the system tended to underestimate tropical productivity. Assimilating both data streams jointly allowed the MPI-CCDAS to match both observations (TIP-FAPAR and atmospheric CO2) equally well as the single data stream assimilation cases, therefore overall increasing the appropriateness of the resultant parameter values and biosphere dynamics. Our study thus highlights the role of the TIP-FAPAR product in stabilising the underdetermined atmospheric inversion problem and demonstrates the value of multiple-data stream assimilation for the simulation of terrestrial biosphere dynamics. The constraint on regional gross and net CO2 flux patterns is limited through the parametrisation of the biosphere model. We expect improvement on that aspect through a refined initialisation strategy and inclusion of further biosphere observations as constraints.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei He ◽  
Ivar R. van der Velde ◽  
Arlyn E. Andrews ◽  
Colm Sweeney ◽  
John Miller ◽  
...  

Abstract. We have implemented a regional carbon dioxide data assimilation system based on the CarbonTracker Data Assimilation Shell (CTDAS) and a high-resolution Lagrangian transport model, the Stochastic Time-Inverted Lagrangian Transport model driven by the Weather Forecast and Research meteorological fields (WRF-STILT). With this system, named as CTDAS‑Lagrange, we simultaneously optimize terrestrial biosphere fluxes and four parameters that adjust the lateral boundary conditions (BCs) against CO2 observations from the NOAA ESRL North America tall tower and aircraft Programmable Flask Packages (PFPs) sampling program. Least-squares optimization is performed with a time-stepping ensemble Kalman smoother, over a time window of 10 days and assimilating sequentially a time series of observations. Because the WRF-STILT footprints are pre-computed, it is computationally efficient to run the CTDAS-Lagrange system. To estimate the uncertainties of the optimized fluxes from the system, we performed sensitivity tests with various a priori biosphere fluxes (SiBCASA, SiB3, CT2013B) and BCs (optimized mole fraction fields from CT2013B and CTE2014, and an empirical data set derived from aircraft observations), as well as with a variety of choices on the ways that fluxes are adjusted (additive or multiplicative), covariance length scales, biosphere flux covariances, BC parameter uncertainties, and model-data mismatches. In pseudo-data experiments, we show that in our implementation the additive flux adjustment method is more flexible in optimizing NEE than the multiplicative flux adjustment method, and that the CTDAS-Lagrange system has the ability to correct for the potential biases in the lateral boundary conditions and to resolve large biases in the prior biosphere fluxes. Using real observations, we have derived a range of estimates for the optimized carbon fluxes from a series of sensitivity tests, which places the North American carbon sink for the year 2010 in a range from −0.92 to −1.26 PgC/yr. This is comparable to the TM5-based estimates of CarbonTracker (version CT2016, −0.91 ± 1.10 PgC/yr) and CarbonTracker Europe (version CTE2016, −0.91 ± 0.31 PgC/yr). We conclude that CTDAS-Lagrange can offer a versatile and computationally attractive alternative to these global systems for regional estimates of carbon fluxes, which can take advantage of high-resolution Lagrangian footprints that are increasingly easy to obtain.


2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 31523-31583 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Miyazaki ◽  
H. J. Eskes ◽  
K. Sudo

Abstract. A data assimilation system has been developed to estimate global nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions using OMI tropospheric NO2 columns (DOMINO product) and a global chemical transport model (CTM), CHASER. The data assimilation system, based on an ensemble Kalman filter approach, was applied to optimize daily NOx emissions with a horizontal resolution of 2.8° during the years 2005 and 2006. The background error covariance estimated from the ensemble CTM forecasts explicitly represents non-direct relationships between the emissions and tropospheric columns caused by atmospheric transport and chemical processes. In comparison to the a priori emissions based on bottom-up inventories, the optimized emissions were higher over Eastern China, the Eastern United States, Southern Africa, and Central-Western Europe, suggesting that the anthropogenic emissions are mostly underestimated in the inventories. In addition, the seasonality of the estimated emissions differed from that of the a priori emission over several biomass burning regions, with a large increase over Southeast Asia in April and over South America in October. The data assimilation results were validated against independent data: SCIAMACHY tropospheric NO2 columns and vertical NO2 profiles obtained from aircraft and lidar measurements. The emission correction greatly improved the agreement between the simulated and observed NO2 fields; this implies that the data assimilation system efficiently derives NOx emissions from concentration observations. We also demonstrated that biases in the satellite retrieval and model settings used in the data assimilation largely affect the magnitude of estimated emissions. These dependences should be carefully considered for better understanding NOx sources from top-down approaches.


2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 2785-2800 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingrid T. van der Laan-Luijkx ◽  
Ivar R. van der Velde ◽  
Emma van der Veen ◽  
Aki Tsuruta ◽  
Karolina Stanislawska ◽  
...  

Abstract. Data assimilation systems are used increasingly to constrain the budgets of reactive and long-lived gases measured in the atmosphere. Each trace gas has its own lifetime, dominant sources and sinks, and observational network (from flask sampling and in situ measurements to space-based remote sensing) and therefore comes with its own optimal configuration of the data assimilation. The CarbonTracker Europe data assimilation system for CO2 estimates global carbon sources and sinks, and updates are released annually and used in carbon cycle studies. CarbonTracker Europe simulations are performed using the new modular implementation of the data assimilation system: the CarbonTracker Data Assimilation Shell (CTDAS). Here, we present and document this redesign of the data assimilation code that forms the heart of CarbonTracker, specifically meant to enable easy extension and modification of the data assimilation system. This paper also presents the setup of the latest version of CarbonTracker Europe (CTE2016), including the use of the gridded state vector, and shows the resulting carbon flux estimates. We present the distribution of the carbon sinks over the hemispheres and between the land biosphere and the oceans. We show that with equal fossil fuel emissions, 2015 has a higher atmospheric CO2 growth rate compared to 2014, due to reduced net land carbon uptake in later year. The European carbon sink is especially present in the forests, and the average net uptake over 2001–2015 was 0. 17 ± 0. 11 PgC yr−1 with reductions to zero during drought years. Finally, we also demonstrate the versatility of CTDAS by presenting an overview of the wide range of applications for which it has been used so far.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingrid T. van der Laan-Luijkx ◽  
Ivar R. van der Velde ◽  
Emma van der Veen ◽  
Aki Tsuruta ◽  
Karolina Stanislawska ◽  
...  

Abstract. Data assimilation systems are used increasingly to constrain the budgets of reactive and long-lived gases measured in the atmosphere. Each trace gas has its own lifetime, dominant sources and sinks, and observational network (from flask sampling and in situ measurements to space-based remote sensing) and therefore comes with its own optimal configuration of the data assimilation. The CarbonTracker Europe data assimilation system for CO2 estimates global carbon sources and sinks, and updates are released annually and used in carbon cycle studies. CarbonTracker Europe simulations are performed using the new modular implementation of the data assimilation system which is called the CarbonTracker Data Assimilation Shell (CTDAS). Here, we present and document this redesign of the data assimilation code that forms the heart of CarbonTracker, specifically meant to enable easy extension and modification of the data assimilation system. This paper also presents the setup of the latest version of CarbonTracker Europe (CTE2016), including the use of the gridded state vector, and shows the resulting carbon flux estimates. We present the distribution of the carbon sinks over the hemispheres and between the land biosphere and the oceans. We show that with equal fossil fuel emissions, 2015 has a higher atmospheric CO2 growth rate compared to 2014, due to reduced land carbon uptake in later year. The European carbon sink is especially present in the forests, and is reduced during drought years. Finally, we also demonstrate the versatility of CTDAS by presenting an overview of the wide range of applications for which it has been used so far.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander J. Norton ◽  
Peter J. Rayner ◽  
Ernest N. Koffi ◽  
Marko Scholze ◽  
Jeremy D. Silver ◽  
...  

Abstract. This paper presents the assimilation of solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) into a terrestrial biosphere model to estimate the gross uptake of carbon through photosynthesis (GPP). We use the BETHY-SCOPE model to simulate both GPP and SIF in a process-based manner, going beyond a simple linear scaling between the two. We then use satellite SIF data from the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) for 2015 in the data assimilation system to constrain model GPP. The assimilation results in considerable improvement between model and observed SIF, despite difficulties in simulating large SIF values due partly to uncertainties in the prescribed LAI. SIF-optimized global GPP increases by 7 % to 137 ± 6 PgCyr−1 and shows improvement in its global distribution relative to independent estimates. This change in global GPP is driven by an overall decline in APAR and increase in the light-use efficiency of photosynthesis across almost all ecosystems. This process-based data assimilation opens up new pathways to the effective utilization of satellite SIF data that will improve our understanding of the global carbon cycle.


2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (23) ◽  
pp. 13281-13293 ◽  
Author(s):  
X. Tian ◽  
Z. Xie ◽  
Y. Liu ◽  
Z. Cai ◽  
Y. Fu ◽  
...  

Abstract. We have developed a novel framework ("Tan-Tracker") for assimilating observations of atmospheric CO2 concentrations, based on the POD-based (proper orthogonal decomposition) ensemble four-dimensional variational data assimilation method (PODEn4DVar). The high flexibility and the high computational efficiency of the PODEn4DVar approach allow us to include both the atmospheric CO2 concentrations and the surface CO2 fluxes as part of the large state vector to be simultaneously estimated from assimilation of atmospheric CO2 observations. Compared to most modern top-down flux inversion approaches, where only surface fluxes are considered as control variables, one major advantage of our joint data assimilation system is that, in principle, no assumption on perfect transport models is needed. In addition, the possibility for Tan-Tracker to use a complete dynamic model to consistently describe the time evolution of CO2 surface fluxes (CFs) and the atmospheric CO2 concentrations represents a better use of observation information for recycling the analyses at each assimilation step in order to improve the forecasts for the following assimilations. An experimental Tan-Tracker system has been built based on a complete augmented dynamical model, where (1) the surface atmosphere CO2 exchanges are prescribed by using a persistent forecasting model for the scaling factors of the first-guess net CO2 surface fluxes and (2) the atmospheric CO2 transport is simulated by using the GEOS-Chem three-dimensional global chemistry transport model. Observing system simulation experiments (OSSEs) for assimilating synthetic in situ observations of surface CO2 concentrations are carefully designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the Tan-Tracker system. In particular, detailed comparisons are made with its simplified version (referred to as TT-S) with only CFs taken as the prognostic variables. It is found that our Tan-Tracker system is capable of outperforming TT-S with higher assimilation precision for both CO2 concentrations and CO2 fluxes, mainly due to the simultaneous estimation of CO2 concentrations and CFs in our Tan-Tracker data assimilation system. A experiment for assimilating the real dry-air column CO2 retrievals (XCO2) from the Japanese Greenhouse Gases Observation Satellite (GOSAT) further demonstrates its potential wide applications.


2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 3225-3253 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keiya Yumimoto ◽  
Taichu Y. Tanaka ◽  
Naga Oshima ◽  
Takashi Maki

Abstract. A global aerosol reanalysis product named the Japanese Reanalysis for Aerosol (JRAero) was constructed by the Meteorological Research Institute (MRI) of the Japan Meteorological Agency. The reanalysis employs a global aerosol transport model developed by MRI and a two-dimensional variational data assimilation method. It assimilates maps of aerosol optical depth (AOD) from MODIS onboard the Terra and Aqua satellites every 6 h and has a TL159 horizontal resolution (approximately 1.1°  ×  1.1°). This paper describes the aerosol transport model, the data assimilation system, the observation data, and the setup of the reanalysis and examines its quality with AOD observations. Comparisons with MODIS AODs that were used for the assimilation showed that the reanalysis showed much better agreement than the free run (without assimilation) of the aerosol model and improved under- and overestimation in the free run, thus confirming the accuracy of the data assimilation system. The reanalysis had a root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.05, a correlation coefficient (R) of 0.96, a mean fractional error (MFE) of 23.7 %, a mean fractional bias (MFB) of 2.8 %, and an index of agreement (IOA) of 0.98. The better agreement of the first guess, compared to the free run, indicates that aerosol fields obtained by the reanalysis can improve short-term forecasts. AOD fields from the reanalysis also agreed well with monthly averaged global AODs obtained by the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) (RMSE  =  0.08, R = 0. 90, MFE  =  28.1 %, MFB  =  0.6 %, and IOA  =  0.93). Site-by-site comparison showed that the reanalysis was considerably better than the free run; RMSE was less than 0.10 at 86.4 % of the 181 AERONET sites, R was greater than 0.90 at 40.7 % of the sites, and IOA was greater than 0.90 at 43.4 % of the sites. However, the reanalysis tended to have a negative bias at urban sites (in particular, megacities in industrializing countries) and a positive bias at mountain sites, possibly because of insufficient anthropogenic emissions data, the coarse model resolution, and the difference in representativeness between satellite and ground-based observations.


2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 4705-4723 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. B. Hooghiemstra ◽  
M. C. Krol ◽  
J. F. Meirink ◽  
P. Bergamaschi ◽  
G. R. van der Werf ◽  
...  

Abstract. We apply a four-dimensional variational (4D-VAR) data assimilation system to optimize carbon monoxide (CO) emissions for 2003 and 2004 and to reduce the uncertainty of emission estimates from individual sources using the chemistry transport model TM5. The system is designed to assimilate large (satellite) datasets, but in the current study only a limited amount of surface network observations from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Earth System Research Laboratory (NOAA/ESRL) Global Monitoring Division (GMD) is used to test the 4D-VAR system. By design, the system is capable to adjust the emissions in such a way that the posterior simulation reproduces background CO mixing ratios and large-scale pollution events at background stations. Uncertainty reduction up to 60 % in yearly emissions is observed over well-constrained regions and the inferred emissions compare well with recent studies for 2004. However, with the limited amount of data from the surface network, the system becomes data sparse resulting in a large solution space. Sensitivity studies have shown that model uncertainties (e.g., vertical distribution of biomass burning emissions and the OH field) and the prior inventories used, influence the inferred emission estimates. Also, since the observations only constrain total CO emissions, the 4D-VAR system has difficulties in separating anthropogenic and biogenic sources in particular. The inferred emissions are validated with NOAA aircraft data over North America and the agreement is significantly improved from the prior to posterior simulation. Validation with the Measurements Of Pollution In The Troposphere (MOPITT) instrument version 4 (V4) shows a slight improved agreement over the well-constrained Northern Hemisphere and in the tropics (except for the African continent). However, the model simulation with posterior emissions underestimates MOPITT CO total columns on the remote Southern Hemisphere (SH) by about 10 %. This is caused by a reduction in SH CO sources mainly due to surface stations on the high southern latitudes.


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