Articles | Volume 19, issue 11
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-7789-2019
© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-7789-2019
© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
12 Jun 2019
Research article |
| 12 Jun 2019
| 12 Jun 2019
An atmospheric inversion over the city of Cape Town: sensitivity analyses
Alecia Nickless
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Atmospheric Chemistry Research Group, School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, Bristol, BS8 1TS, UK
Department of Statistical Sciences, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, 7701, South Africa
Peter J. Rayner
School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia
Robert J. Scholes
Global Change Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2050, South Africa
Francois Engelbrecht
Global Change Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2050, South Africa
Birgit Erni
Department of Statistical Sciences, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, 7701, South Africa
The Centre for Statistics in Ecology, the Environment and Conservation, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, 7701, South Africa
Related authors
Alecia Nickless, Peter J. Rayner, Francois Engelbrecht, Ernst-Günther Brunke, Birgit Erni, and Robert J. Scholes
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 4765–4801, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-4765-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-4765-2018, 2018
Short summary
Short summary
Carbon dioxide emissions and uptake were estimated for Cape Town, South Africa. We placed two high-precision analysers in lighthouses located on either end of Cape Town (Robben Island and Hangklip). The Cape Point GAW station provided background measurements. We were able to improve the agreement between modelled and observed concentrations, relative to initial estimates provided. This methodology could potentially be scaled up to provide monitoring and verification of city emissions.
Nobuhle P. Majozi, Chris M. Mannaerts, Abel Ramoelo, Renaud Mathieu, Alecia Nickless, and Wouter Verhoef
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 3401–3415, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-3401-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-3401-2017, 2017
Short summary
Short summary
The study analysed the quality and partitioning of a 15-year surface energy dataset from Skukuza flux tower. The yearly mean energy balance ratio (EBR) was 0.93, with the dry season having the lowest ratio. Night ratio was lower than daytime, with analysis showing an increase in EBR with increase in friction velocity, which is also linked to time of day. The energy partitioning showed that sensible heat flux is the dominant portion in the dry season, and latent heat flux during the wet season.
Nobuhle P. Majozi, Chris M. Mannaerts, Abel Ramoelo, Renaud Mathieu, Alecia Nickless, and Wouter Verhoef
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2016-76, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2016-76, 2016
Manuscript not accepted for further review
Short summary
Short summary
This research investigated the quality of the surface energy balance components as they are measured by the eddy covariance system at the Skukuza FLUXNET station. It also looked at how net solar radiation in a semi-arid ecosystem is partitioned into soil heat conduction and turbulent fluxes, i.e. the sensible (or convection) and latent heat components of the energy balance. Results show that sensible heat flux is the dominant portion of the net solar radiation.
A. Nickless, T. Ziehn, P.J. Rayner, R.J. Scholes, and F. Engelbrecht
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 2051–2069, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-2051-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-2051-2015, 2015
Short summary
Short summary
This study aims to provide an optimal network design for the placement of new atmospheric monitoring stations around South Africa, to best estimate the emission and uptake of carbon dioxide fluxes due to both anthropogenic and natural sources. In addition, a sensitivity analysis was performed on the impact that certain parameters would have on the final network solution, considering the inverse modelling framework, the transport model and the use of a different optimisation routine.
T. Ziehn, A. Nickless, P. J. Rayner, R. M. Law, G. Roff, and P. Fraser
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 14, 9363–9378, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-9363-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-9363-2014, 2014
Yohanna Villalobos, Peter J. Rayner, Jeremy D. Silver, Steven Thomas, Vanessa Haverd, Jürgen Knauer, Zoë M. Loh, Nicholas M. Deutscher, David W. T. Griffith, and David F. Pollard
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 8897–8934, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-8897-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-8897-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
We study the interannual variability in Australian carbon fluxes for 2015–2019 derived from OCO-2 satellite data. Our results suggest that Australia's semi-arid ecosystems are highly responsive to variations in climate drivers such as rainfall and temperature. We found that high rainfall and low temperatures recorded in 2016 led to an anomalous carbon sink over savanna and sparsely vegetated regions, while unprecedented dry and hot weather in 2019 led to anomalous carbon release.
Zhenyi Chen, Robyn Schofield, Melita Keywood, Sam Cleland, Alastair G. Williams, Alan Griffiths, Stephen Wilson, Peter Rayner, and Xiaowen Shu
Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2022-104, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2022-104, 2022
Revised manuscript not accepted
Short summary
Short summary
This study studied the marine boundary layer (MBL) process and aerosol properties in the Southern Ocean using miniMPL, ceilometer and sodar. Compared to the gradient method, the Image Edge Detection Algorithm provides more reliable boundary layer height estimations, especially when a convective MBL with stratification existed. The diurnal characteristic of BLH with the veering of the wind vector was also observed. Under the continental sources, the MBL maintained a well-mixed layer of 0.3 km.
Philippe Ciais, Ana Bastos, Frédéric Chevallier, Ronny Lauerwald, Ben Poulter, Josep G. Canadell, Gustaf Hugelius, Robert B. Jackson, Atul Jain, Matthew Jones, Masayuki Kondo, Ingrid T. Luijkx, Prabir K. Patra, Wouter Peters, Julia Pongratz, Ana Maria Roxana Petrescu, Shilong Piao, Chunjing Qiu, Celso Von Randow, Pierre Regnier, Marielle Saunois, Robert Scholes, Anatoly Shvidenko, Hanqin Tian, Hui Yang, Xuhui Wang, and Bo Zheng
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 1289–1316, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-1289-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-1289-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
The second phase of the Regional Carbon Cycle Assessment and Processes (RECCAP) will provide updated quantification and process understanding of CO2, CH4, and N2O emissions and sinks for ten regions of the globe. In this paper, we give definitions, review different methods, and make recommendations for estimating different components of the total land–atmosphere carbon exchange for each region in a consistent and complete approach.
Thando Ndarana, Lesetja E. Lekoloane, Tsholanang S. Rammopo, Chris J. C. Reason, Mary-Jane M. Bopape, Hector Chikoore, and Francois A. Engelbrecht
Weather Clim. Dynam. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-2022-2, https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-2022-2, 2022
Preprint withdrawn
Short summary
Short summary
This study considered the upper dynamics associated with the South Atlantic Ocean high pressure system that extends across the South African domain. This extension of this system occurs in two ways. The dynamics are studied by considering the evolution of energy and it is shown that the upper level processes are different between the two types of the extension. The weather systems that occur in the upper develop very differently and have different implications for rainfall over South Africa.
Yohanna Villalobos, Peter J. Rayner, Jeremy D. Silver, Steven Thomas, Vanessa Haverd, Jürgen Knauer, Zoë M. Loh, Nicholas M. Deutscher, David W. T. Griffith, and David F. Pollard
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 17453–17494, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-17453-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-17453-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
Semi-arid ecosystems such as those in Australia are evolving and might play an essential role in the future of climate change. We use carbon dioxide concentrations derived from the OCO-2 satellite instrument and a regional transport model to understand if Australia was a carbon sink or source of CO2 in 2015. Our research's main findings suggest that Australia acted as a carbon sink of about −0.41 ± 0.08 petagrams of carbon in 2015, driven primarily by savanna and sparsely vegetated ecosystems.
Malte Meinshausen, Zebedee R. J. Nicholls, Jared Lewis, Matthew J. Gidden, Elisabeth Vogel, Mandy Freund, Urs Beyerle, Claudia Gessner, Alexander Nauels, Nico Bauer, Josep G. Canadell, John S. Daniel, Andrew John, Paul B. Krummel, Gunnar Luderer, Nicolai Meinshausen, Stephen A. Montzka, Peter J. Rayner, Stefan Reimann, Steven J. Smith, Marten van den Berg, Guus J. M. Velders, Martin K. Vollmer, and Ray H. J. Wang
Geosci. Model Dev., 13, 3571–3605, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-3571-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-3571-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
This study provides the future greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations under the new set of so-called SSP scenarios (the successors of the IPCC SRES and previous representative concentration pathway (RCP) scenarios). The projected CO2 concentrations range from 350 ppm for low-emission scenarios by 2150 to more than 2000 ppm under the high-emission scenarios. We also provide concentrations, latitudinal gradients, and seasonality for most of the other 42 considered GHGs.
Yohanna Villalobos, Peter Rayner, Steven Thomas, and Jeremy Silver
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 8473–8500, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-8473-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-8473-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
Estimated carbon fluxes for Australia are subject to considerable uncertainty. We ran simulation experiments over Australia to determine how much these uncertainties can be constrained using satellite data. We found that the satellite data has the potential to reduce these uncertainties up to 80 % across the whole continent. For 1 month, this percentage corresponds to 0.51 Pg C y-1 for Australia. This method could lead to significantly more accurate estimates of Australia's carbon budget.
Floyd Vukosi Khosa, Mohau Jacob Mateyisi, Martina Reynita van der Merwe, Gregor Timothy Feig, Francois Alwyn Engelbrecht, and Michael John Savage
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 1587–1609, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-1587-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-1587-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
The paper evaluates soil moisture outputs from three structurally distinct models against in situ data. Our goal is to find how representative the model outputs are for site and region. This is a question of interest as some of the models have a specific regional focus on their inceptions. Much focus is placed on how the models capture the soil moisture signal. We find that there is agreement on seasonal patterns between the models and observations with a tolerable level of model uncertainty.
Peter Rayner
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 3725–3737, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-3725-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-3725-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
This work extends previous calculations of carbon dioxide sources and sinks to take account of the varying quality of atmospheric models. It uses an extended version of Bayesian statistics which includes the model as one of the unknowns. I performed the work as an example of including the model in the description of the uncertainty.
Peter J. Rayner, Anna M. Michalak, and Frédéric Chevallier
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 13911–13932, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-13911-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-13911-2019, 2019
Short summary
Short summary
This paper describes the methods for combining models and data to understand how nutrients and pollutants move through natural systems. The methods are analogous to the process of weather forecasting in which previous information is combined with new observations and a model to improve our knowledge of the internal state of the physical system. The methods appear highly diverse but the paper shows that they are all examples of a single underlying formalism.
Alexander J. Norton, Peter J. Rayner, Ernest N. Koffi, Marko Scholze, Jeremy D. Silver, and Ying-Ping Wang
Biogeosciences, 16, 3069–3093, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-16-3069-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-16-3069-2019, 2019
Short summary
Short summary
This study presents an estimate of global terrestrial photosynthesis. We make use of satellite chlorophyll fluorescence measurements, a visible indicator of photosynthesis, to optimize model parameters and estimate photosynthetic carbon uptake. This new framework incorporates nonlinear, process-based understanding of the link between fluorescence and photosynthesis, an advance on past approaches. This will aid in the utility of fluorescence to quantify terrestrial carbon cycle feedbacks.
Alexander J. Norton, Peter J. Rayner, Ernest N. Koffi, Marko Scholze, Jeremy D. Silver, and Ying-Ping Wang
Biogeosciences Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-2018-270, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-2018-270, 2018
Revised manuscript has not been submitted
Short summary
Short summary
This study presents a global estimate of land carbon uptake through photosynthesis. We make use satellite chlorophyll fluorescence measurements, a visible indicator of photosynthesis, to optimize model parameters and then use the optimized model to estimate photosynthetic carbon uptake. This provides a new tool that can combine measurements and observations in a systematic way and maximise the use of chlorophyll fluorescence to improve our understanding of the land carbon cycle.
Alexander J. Norton, Peter J. Rayner, Ernest N. Koffi, and Marko Scholze
Geosci. Model Dev., 11, 1517–1536, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-11-1517-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-11-1517-2018, 2018
Short summary
Short summary
It is difficult to estimate how much CO2 plants absorb via photosynthesis and even more difficult to model this for the whole globe. Here, we present a framework to combine a new satellite measurement "solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence" with a global photosynthesis model. We then quantify how this new measurement constrains model uncertainties and find highly effective constraint. These results pave a novel pathway for improving estimates and modelling abilities of photosynthesis globally.
Alecia Nickless, Peter J. Rayner, Francois Engelbrecht, Ernst-Günther Brunke, Birgit Erni, and Robert J. Scholes
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 4765–4801, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-4765-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-4765-2018, 2018
Short summary
Short summary
Carbon dioxide emissions and uptake were estimated for Cape Town, South Africa. We placed two high-precision analysers in lighthouses located on either end of Cape Town (Robben Island and Hangklip). The Cape Point GAW station provided background measurements. We were able to improve the agreement between modelled and observed concentrations, relative to initial estimates provided. This methodology could potentially be scaled up to provide monitoring and verification of city emissions.
Hannah M. Horowitz, Rebecca M. Garland, Marcus Thatcher, Willem A. Landman, Zane Dedekind, Jacobus van der Merwe, and Francois A. Engelbrecht
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 17, 13999–14023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-13999-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-13999-2017, 2017
Short summary
Short summary
Africa is a major source of particles (or aerosols) from dust and fires, which impact climate. Models used to predict impacts of future climate change have not been well tested for aerosols over Africa. In this study we evaluate aerosols in the CCAM climate model against observations across Africa and surrounding regions. We find the model generally captures observed variability but overestimates dust in northern Africa, which has implications for its representation of climate feedbacks.
Thomas Kaminski and Peter Julian Rayner
Biogeosciences, 14, 4755–4766, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-14-4755-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-14-4755-2017, 2017
Short summary
Short summary
Observations can reduce uncertainties in past, current, and predicted natural and anthropogenic CO2 fluxes. They provide independent information for verification of actions as requested by the Paris Agreement. Quantitative network design (QND) is an objective approach to optimise in situ networks and space missions to achieve an optimal use of the observational capabilities. We describe recent progress and advocate an integrated QND system that simultaneously evaluates multiple data streams.
Nobuhle P. Majozi, Chris M. Mannaerts, Abel Ramoelo, Renaud Mathieu, Alecia Nickless, and Wouter Verhoef
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 3401–3415, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-3401-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-3401-2017, 2017
Short summary
Short summary
The study analysed the quality and partitioning of a 15-year surface energy dataset from Skukuza flux tower. The yearly mean energy balance ratio (EBR) was 0.93, with the dry season having the lowest ratio. Night ratio was lower than daytime, with analysis showing an increase in EBR with increase in friction velocity, which is also linked to time of day. The energy partitioning showed that sensible heat flux is the dominant portion in the dry season, and latent heat flux during the wet season.
Malte Meinshausen, Elisabeth Vogel, Alexander Nauels, Katja Lorbacher, Nicolai Meinshausen, David M. Etheridge, Paul J. Fraser, Stephen A. Montzka, Peter J. Rayner, Cathy M. Trudinger, Paul B. Krummel, Urs Beyerle, Josep G. Canadell, John S. Daniel, Ian G. Enting, Rachel M. Law, Chris R. Lunder, Simon O'Doherty, Ron G. Prinn, Stefan Reimann, Mauro Rubino, Guus J. M. Velders, Martin K. Vollmer, Ray H. J. Wang, and Ray Weiss
Geosci. Model Dev., 10, 2057–2116, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-2057-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-2057-2017, 2017
Short summary
Short summary
Climate change is primarily driven by human-induced increases of greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations. Based on ongoing community efforts (e.g. AGAGE and NOAA networks, ice cores), this study presents historical concentrations of CO2, CH4, N2O and 40 other GHGs from year 0 to year 2014. The data is recommended as input for climate models for pre-industrial, historical runs under CMIP6. Global means, but also latitudinal by monthly surface concentration fields are provided.
Cathy M. Trudinger, Paul J. Fraser, David M. Etheridge, William T. Sturges, Martin K. Vollmer, Matt Rigby, Patricia Martinerie, Jens Mühle, David R. Worton, Paul B. Krummel, L. Paul Steele, Benjamin R. Miller, Johannes Laube, Francis S. Mani, Peter J. Rayner, Christina M. Harth, Emmanuel Witrant, Thomas Blunier, Jakob Schwander, Simon O'Doherty, and Mark Battle
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 11733–11754, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-11733-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-11733-2016, 2016
Short summary
Short summary
Perfluorocarbons (PFCs) are potent, long-lived and mostly man-made greenhouse gases released to the atmosphere mainly during aluminium production and semiconductor manufacture. Here we present the first continuous histories of three PFCs from 1800 to 2014, derived from measurements of these PFCs in the atmosphere and in air bubbles in polar ice. The records show how human actions have affected these important greenhouse gases over the past century.
Philippe Peylin, Cédric Bacour, Natasha MacBean, Sébastien Leonard, Peter Rayner, Sylvain Kuppel, Ernest Koffi, Abdou Kane, Fabienne Maignan, Frédéric Chevallier, Philippe Ciais, and Pascal Prunet
Geosci. Model Dev., 9, 3321–3346, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-3321-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-3321-2016, 2016
Short summary
Short summary
The study describes a carbon cycle data assimilation system that uses satellite observations of vegetation activity, net ecosystem exchange of carbon and water at many sites and atmospheric CO2 concentrations, in order to optimize the parameters of the ORCHIDEE land surface model. The optimized model is able to fit all three data streams leading to a land carbon uptake similar to independent estimates, which opens new perspectives for better prediction of the land carbon balance.
Denis M. O'Brien, Igor N. Polonsky, Steven R. Utembe, and Peter J. Rayner
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 9, 4633–4654, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-9-4633-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-9-4633-2016, 2016
Short summary
Short summary
The accuracy with which emissions of CO2, CH4 and CO from a complex city can be estimated from geostationary orbit is assessed via numerical experiment. Sources of the gases, meteorology, clouds and aerosols over the city are simulated, as are spectra of reflected sunlight in absorption bands of the gases. Gas concentrations are estimated from the spectra, and source distributions from the concentrations. Comparison of estimated and true sources measures the accuracy of the observing system.
Cindy Cressot, Isabelle Pison, Peter J. Rayner, Philippe Bousquet, Audrey Fortems-Cheiney, and Frédéric Chevallier
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 9089–9108, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-9089-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-9089-2016, 2016
Short summary
Short summary
Several hypothesis have been made to attribute current trends in atmospheric methane to particular regions. In this context, this work aims at evaluating how well anomalies in methane emissions can be detected at the regional scale with currently available observing systems: two space-borne instruments and a surface network. Our results show that inter-annual analyses of methane emissions inferred by atmospheric inversions should always include an uncertainty assessment.
Peter Rayner, Anna M. Michalak, and Frédéric Chevallier
Geosci. Model Dev. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-2016-148, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-2016-148, 2016
Revised manuscript not accepted
Short summary
Short summary
Numerical models are among our most important tools for understanding and prediction. Models include quantities or equations that we cannot verify directly. We learn about these unknowns by comparing model output with observations and using some algorithm to improve the inputs. We show here that the many methods for doing this are special cases of underlying statistics. This provides a unified way of comparing and contrasting such methods.
Nobuhle P. Majozi, Chris M. Mannaerts, Abel Ramoelo, Renaud Mathieu, Alecia Nickless, and Wouter Verhoef
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2016-76, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2016-76, 2016
Manuscript not accepted for further review
Short summary
Short summary
This research investigated the quality of the surface energy balance components as they are measured by the eddy covariance system at the Skukuza FLUXNET station. It also looked at how net solar radiation in a semi-arid ecosystem is partitioned into soil heat conduction and turbulent fluxes, i.e. the sensible (or convection) and latent heat components of the energy balance. Results show that sensible heat flux is the dominant portion of the net solar radiation.
Xia Zhang, Kevin R. Gurney, Peter Rayner, David Baker, and Yu-ping Liu
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 1907–1918, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-1907-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-1907-2016, 2016
Short summary
Short summary
This study presents a complete exploration of the space/time effect of time variations (diurnal, weekly, monthly) in fossil fuel emission on CO2 concentration. The paper identified rectifier effect at local to regional scale that is expected from fossil fuel emission and compared to biospheric rectification, and then extends the subject to column measurement. This study demonstrates the importance of considering sub-annual fossil fuel emissions on model simulation and related studies.
T. Ziehn, R. M. Law, P. J. Rayner, and G. Roff
Geosci. Instrum. Method. Data Syst., 5, 1–15, https://doi.org/10.5194/gi-5-1-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/gi-5-1-2016, 2016
Short summary
Short summary
This study investigates the optimal location of greenhouse gas (GHG) measurement stations in Australia in order to derive GHG flux estimates from concentration measurements. We find that an optimal network designed for CO2 also performs well for other GHGs such as CH4 and N2O due to large similarities in the flux pattern for each of the three GHGs. Economic costs (i.e. maintenance costs) can be halved by selecting stations closer to the base laboratory with only a slight decrease in performance.
P. Smith, M. F. Cotrufo, C. Rumpel, K. Paustian, P. J. Kuikman, J. A. Elliott, R. McDowell, R. I. Griffiths, S. Asakawa, M. Bustamante, J. I. House, J. Sobocká, R. Harper, G. Pan, P. C. West, J. S. Gerber, J. M. Clark, T. Adhya, R. J. Scholes, and M. C. Scholes
SOIL, 1, 665–685, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-1-665-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-1-665-2015, 2015
Short summary
Short summary
Soils play a pivotal role in major global biogeochemical cycles (carbon, nutrient, and water), while hosting the largest diversity of organisms on land. Soils deliver fundamental ecosystem services, and management to change a soil process in support of one ecosystem service can affect other services. We provide a critical review of these aspects, and conclude that, although there are knowledge gaps, enough is known improve soils globally, and we suggest actions to start this process.
E. N. Koffi, P. J. Rayner, A. J. Norton, C. Frankenberg, and M. Scholze
Biogeosciences, 12, 4067–4084, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-12-4067-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-12-4067-2015, 2015
Short summary
Short summary
We investigate the utility of satellite measurements of solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) in constraining gross primary productivity (GPP). We simulate SIF with the biosphere model BETHY coupled with the fluorescence model SCOPE. The model simulates well the patterns of SIF. SIF is sensitive to leaf chlorophyll and incoming radiation but not to the key physiological parameter Vcmax controlling GPP. Thus, further model development is necessary before SIF can be used to constrain GPP.
S. Crowell, P. Rayner, S. Zaccheo, and B. Moore
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 8, 2685–2697, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-8-2685-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-8-2685-2015, 2015
Short summary
Short summary
We derive a yes/no requirement for the usefulness of an O2 lidar as part of the ASCENDS mission that incorporates errors due to atmospheric state misspecification as well as instrumental noise. We find that the larger the CO2 instrument's sensitivity to surface pressure errors, the lower the precision requirement for the O2 instrument to be useful. In particular, the 2um CO2 instrument would benefit the most from the inclusion of an O2 lidar with high precision retrievals of surface pressure.
A. Nickless, T. Ziehn, P.J. Rayner, R.J. Scholes, and F. Engelbrecht
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 2051–2069, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-2051-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-2051-2015, 2015
Short summary
Short summary
This study aims to provide an optimal network design for the placement of new atmospheric monitoring stations around South Africa, to best estimate the emission and uptake of carbon dioxide fluxes due to both anthropogenic and natural sources. In addition, a sensitivity analysis was performed on the impact that certain parameters would have on the final network solution, considering the inverse modelling framework, the transport model and the use of a different optimisation routine.
P. J. Rayner, A. Stavert, M. Scholze, A. Ahlström, C. E. Allison, and R. M. Law
Biogeosciences, 12, 835–844, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-12-835-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-12-835-2015, 2015
Short summary
Short summary
Recent papers suggest a slow-down in the natural uptake of
anthropogenic CO2. We analyse recent trends in atmospheric concentration and
known inputs to test for such a slow-down. We see, rather, an increase
in uptake compared to a simple response to changing CO2 concentration. Using atmospheric models and statistical techniques we isolate this increased uptake to the northern temperate and boreal continents during summer, suggesting a stronger growing season.
S. R. Utembe, N. Jones, P. J. Rayner, I. Genkova, D. W. T. Griffith, D. M. O'Brien, C. Lunney, and A. J. Clark
Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/acpd-14-31551-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/acpd-14-31551-2014, 2014
Revised manuscript not accepted
Short summary
Short summary
A methodology to estimate CO2 emissions from an isolated power plant
is presented and illustrated for a power station in South Australia. It involves measurement of in-situ and column-averaged CO2 near the power plant, forward modelling of the observed signals (using WRF-Chem) and inverse modelling to obtain an estimate of the power plant fluxes. Better simulation is obtained for column data giving better estimates of fluxes. Our estimated emissions are within 6% of the reported values.
X. Zhang, K. R. Gurney, P. Rayner, Y. Liu, and S. Asefi-Najafabady
Geosci. Model Dev., 7, 2867–2874, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-7-2867-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-7-2867-2014, 2014
P. J. Rayner, S. R. Utembe, and S. Crowell
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 7, 3285–3293, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-7-3285-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-7-3285-2014, 2014
T. Ziehn, A. Nickless, P. J. Rayner, R. M. Law, G. Roff, and P. Fraser
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 14, 9363–9378, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-9363-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-9363-2014, 2014
P. Ciais, A. J. Dolman, A. Bombelli, R. Duren, A. Peregon, P. J. Rayner, C. Miller, N. Gobron, G. Kinderman, G. Marland, N. Gruber, F. Chevallier, R. J. Andres, G. Balsamo, L. Bopp, F.-M. Bréon, G. Broquet, R. Dargaville, T. J. Battin, A. Borges, H. Bovensmann, M. Buchwitz, J. Butler, J. G. Canadell, R. B. Cook, R. DeFries, R. Engelen, K. R. Gurney, C. Heinze, M. Heimann, A. Held, M. Henry, B. Law, S. Luyssaert, J. Miller, T. Moriyama, C. Moulin, R. B. Myneni, C. Nussli, M. Obersteiner, D. Ojima, Y. Pan, J.-D. Paris, S. L. Piao, B. Poulter, S. Plummer, S. Quegan, P. Raymond, M. Reichstein, L. Rivier, C. Sabine, D. Schimel, O. Tarasova, R. Valentini, R. Wang, G. van der Werf, D. Wickland, M. Williams, and C. Zehner
Biogeosciences, 11, 3547–3602, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-11-3547-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-11-3547-2014, 2014
H. C. Winsemius, E. Dutra, F. A. Engelbrecht, E. Archer Van Garderen, F. Wetterhall, F. Pappenberger, and M. G. F. Werner
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 18, 1525–1538, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-18-1525-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-18-1525-2014, 2014
R. Valentini, A. Arneth, A. Bombelli, S. Castaldi, R. Cazzolla Gatti, F. Chevallier, P. Ciais, E. Grieco, J. Hartmann, M. Henry, R. A. Houghton, M. Jung, W. L. Kutsch, Y. Malhi, E. Mayorga, L. Merbold, G. Murray-Tortarolo, D. Papale, P. Peylin, B. Poulter, P. A. Raymond, M. Santini, S. Sitch, G. Vaglio Laurin, G. R. van der Werf, C. A. Williams, and R. J. Scholes
Biogeosciences, 11, 381–407, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-11-381-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-11-381-2014, 2014
P. Peylin, R. M. Law, K. R. Gurney, F. Chevallier, A. R. Jacobson, T. Maki, Y. Niwa, P. K. Patra, W. Peters, P. J. Rayner, C. Rödenbeck, I. T. van der Laan-Luijkx, and X. Zhang
Biogeosciences, 10, 6699–6720, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-10-6699-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-10-6699-2013, 2013
S. M. Burrows, P. J. Rayner, T. Butler, and M. G. Lawrence
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13, 5473–5488, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-5473-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-5473-2013, 2013
C. M. Trudinger, I. G. Enting, P. J. Rayner, D. M. Etheridge, C. Buizert, M. Rubino, P. B. Krummel, and T. Blunier
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13, 1485–1510, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-1485-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-1485-2013, 2013
Related subject area
Subject: Gases | Research Activity: Atmospheric Modelling and Data Analysis | Altitude Range: Troposphere | Science Focus: Physics (physical properties and processes)
Partitioning anthropogenic and natural methane emissions in Finland during 2000–2021 by combining bottom-up and top-down estimates
The role of OCO-3 XCO2 retrievals in estimating global terrestrial net ecosystem exchanges
The improved Trajectory-mapped Ozonesonde dataset for the Stratosphere and Troposphere (TOST): update, validation and applications
Tracing the origins of stratospheric ozone intrusions: direct vs. indirect pathways and their impacts on Central and Eastern China in spring–summer 2019
Flow-dependent observation errors for greenhouse gas inversions in an ensemble Kalman smoother
Observational and model evidence for a prominent stratospheric influence on variability in tropospheric nitrous oxide
Estimation of Canada's methane emissions: inverse modelling analysis using the Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) measurement network
Spatiotemporal source apportionment of ozone pollution over the Greater Bay Area
The importance of moist thermodynamics on neutral buoyancy height for plumes from anthropogenic sources
Potential of 14C-based vs. ΔCO-based ΔffCO2 observations to estimate urban fossil fuel CO2 (ffCO2) emissions
On the uncertainty of anthropogenic aromatic volatile organic compound emissions: model evaluation and sensitivity analysis
A mechanism of stratospheric O3 intrusion into the atmospheric environment: a case study of the North China Plain
Influence of atmospheric circulation on the interannual variability of transport from global and regional emissions into the Arctic
Surface networks in the Arctic may miss a future methane bomb
Potential of using CO2 observations over India in a regional carbon budget estimation by improving the modelling system
A bottom-up emission estimate for the 2022 Nord Stream gas leak: derivation, simulations, and evaluation
European CH4 inversions with ICON-ART coupled to the CarbonTracker Data Assimilation Shell
Extreme weather exacerbates ozone pollution in the Pearl River Delta, China: role of natural processes
Multidecadal ozone trends in China and implications for human health and crop yields: a hybrid approach combining a chemical transport model and machine learning
On the influence of vertical mixing, boundary layer schemes, and temporal emission profiles on tropospheric NO2 in WRF-Chem – comparisons to in situ, satellite, and MAX-DOAS observations
Decreasing trends of ammonia emissions over Europe seen from remote sensing and inverse modelling
The sensitivity of Southern Ocean atmospheric dimethyl sulfide (DMS) to modeled oceanic DMS concentrations and emissions
Impacts of maritime shipping on air pollution along the US East Coast
Understanding greenhouse gas (GHG) column concentrations in Munich using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model
Impact of transport model resolution and a priori assumptions on inverse modeling of Swiss F-gas emissions
Estimation of power plant SO2 emissions using the HYSPLIT dispersion model and airborne observations with plume rise ensemble runs
Can we use atmospheric CO2 measurements to verify emission trends reported by cities? Lessons from a 6-year atmospheric inversion over Paris
A new steady-state gas–particle partitioning model of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons: implication for the influence of the particulate proportion in emissions
An analysis of CMAQ gas-phase dry deposition over North America through grid-scale and land-use-specific diagnostics in the context of AQMEII4
Rethinking the role of transport and photochemistry in regional ozone pollution: insights from ozone concentration and mass budgets
Decreasing seasonal cycle amplitude of methane in the northern high latitudes being driven by lower-latitude changes in emissions and transport
The effect of anthropogenic emission, meteorological factors, and carbon dioxide on the surface ozone increase in China from 2008 to 2018 during the East Asia summer monsoon season
Development of a CMAQ–PMF-based composite index for prescribing an effective ozone abatement strategy: a case study of sensitivity of surface ozone to precursor volatile organic compound species in southern Taiwan
Comment on “Climate consequences of hydrogen emissions” by Ocko and Hamburg (2022)
Constraining emissions of volatile organic compounds from western US wildfires with WE-CAN and FIREX-AQ airborne observations
Satellite quantification of methane emissions and oil–gas methane intensities from individual countries in the Middle East and North Africa: implications for climate action
Coupled mesoscale–microscale modeling of air quality in a polluted city using WRF-LES-Chem
Impact of aerosol optics on vertical distribution of ozone in autumn over Yangtze River Delta
A view of the European carbon flux landscape through the lens of the ICOS atmospheric observation network
Technical note: The CAMS greenhouse gas reanalysis from 2003 to 2020
Evaluation of simulated CO2 power plant plumes from six high-resolution atmospheric transport models
Impacts of urbanization on air quality and the related health risks in a city with complex terrain
Optimizing 4 years of CO2 biospheric fluxes from OCO-2 and in situ data in TM5: fire emissions from GFED and inferred from MOPITT CO data
Development and application of a multi-scale modeling framework for urban high-resolution NO2 pollution mapping
Towards monitoring the CO2 source–sink distribution over India via inverse modelling: quantifying the fine-scale spatiotemporal variability in the atmospheric CO2 mole fraction
Methane emissions from China: a high-resolution inversion of TROPOMI satellite observations
Estimated regional CO2 flux and uncertainty based on an ensemble of atmospheric CO2 inversions
Assessing the representativity of NH3 measurements influenced by boundary-layer dynamics and the turbulent dispersion of a nearby emission source
Analysis of CO2, CH4, and CO surface and column concentrations observed at Réunion Island by assessing WRF-Chem simulations
Technical note: Interpretation of field observations of point-source methane plume using observation-driven large-eddy simulations
Maria K. Tenkanen, Aki Tsuruta, Hugo Denier van der Gon, Lena Höglund-Isaksson, Antti Leppänen, Tiina Markkanen, Ana Maria Roxana Petrescu, Maarit Raivonen, Hermanni Aaltonen, and Tuula Aalto
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 2181–2206, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-2181-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-2181-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Accurate national methane (CH4) emission estimates are essential for tracking progress towards climate goals. This study compares estimates from Finland, which use different methods and scales, and shows how well a global model estimates emissions within a country. The bottom-up estimates vary a lot, but constraining them with atmospheric CH4 measurements brought the estimates closer together. We also highlight the importance of quantifying natural emissions alongside anthropogenic emissions.
Xingyu Wang, Fei Jiang, Hengmao Wang, Zhengqi Zhang, Mousong Wu, Jun Wang, Wei He, Weimin Ju, and Jing M. Chen
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 867–880, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-867-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-867-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
The role of OCO-3 XCO2 retrievals in estimating global terrestrial carbon fluxes is unclear. We investigate this by assimilating OCO-3 XCO2 retrievals alone and in combination with OCO-2 XCO2. The assimilation of OCO-3 XCO2 alone underestimates global land sinks, mainly at high latitudes, due to the lack of observations beyond 52° S and 52° N, large variations in the number of data, and varying observation times, while the joint assimilation of OCO-2 and OCO-3 XCO2 has the best performance.
Zhou Zang, Jane Liu, David Tarasick, Omid Moeini, Jianchun Bian, Jinqiang Zhang, Anne M. Thompson, Roeland Van Malderen, Herman G. J. Smit, Ryan M. Stauffer, Bryan J. Johnson, and Debra E. Kollonige
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 13889–13912, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13889-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13889-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The Trajectory-mapped Ozonesonde dataset for the Stratosphere and Troposphere (TOST) provides a global-scale, long-term ozone climatology that is horizontally and vertically resolved. In this study, we improved, updated and validated TOST from 1970 to 2021. Based on this TOST dataset, we characterized global ozone variations spatially in both the troposphere and stratosphere and temporally by season and decade. We also showed a stagnant lower stratospheric ozone variation since the late 1990s.
Kai Meng, Tianliang Zhao, Yongqing Bai, Ming Wu, Le Cao, Xuewei Hou, Yuehan Luo, and Yongcheng Jiang
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 12623–12642, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12623-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12623-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We studied the impact of stratospheric intrusions (SIs) on tropospheric and near-surface ozone in Central and Eastern China from a stratospheric source tracing perspective. SIs contribute the most in the eastern plains, with a contribution exceeding 15 %, and have a small contribution to the west and south. Western Siberia and Mongolia are the most critical source areas for indirect and direct SIs, with the Rossby wave and northeast cold vortex being important driving circulation systems.
Michael Steiner, Luca Cantarello, Stephan Henne, and Dominik Brunner
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 12447–12463, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12447-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12447-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Atmospheric greenhouse gas inversions have great potential to independently check reported bottom-up emissions; however they are subject to large uncertainties. It is paramount to address and reduce the largest source of uncertainty, which stems from the representation of atmospheric transport in the models. In this study, we show that the use of a temporally varying flow-dependent atmospheric transport uncertainty can enhance the accuracy of emission estimation in an idealized experiment.
Cynthia D. Nevison, Qing Liang, Paul A. Newman, Britton B. Stephens, Geoff Dutton, Xin Lan, Roisin Commane, Yenny Gonzalez, and Eric Kort
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 10513–10529, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10513-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10513-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
This study examines the drivers of interannual variability in tropospheric N2O. New insights are obtained from aircraft data and a chemistry–climate model that explicitly simulates stratospheric N2O. The stratosphere is found to be the dominant driver of N2O variability in the Northern Hemisphere, while both the stratosphere and El Niño cycles are important in the Southern Hemisphere. These results are consistent with known atmospheric dynamics and differences between the hemispheres.
Misa Ishizawa, Douglas Chan, Doug Worthy, Elton Chan, Felix Vogel, Joe R. Melton, and Vivek K. Arora
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 10013–10038, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10013-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10013-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Methane (CH4) emissions in Canada for 2007–2017 were estimated using Canada’s surface greenhouse gas measurements. The estimated emissions show no significant trend, but emission uncertainty was reduced as more measurement sites became available. Notably for climate change, we find the wetland CH4 emissions show a positive correlation with surface air temperature in summer. Canada’s measurement network could monitor future CH4 emission changes and compliance with climate change mitigation goals.
Yiang Chen, Xingcheng Lu, and Jimmy C. H. Fung
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 8847–8864, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8847-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8847-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
This study investigates the contribution of pollutants from different emitting periods to ozone episodes over the Greater Bay Area. The analysis reveals the variation in major spatiotemporal contributors to the O3 pollution under the influence of typhoons and subtropical high pressure. Through temporal contribution analysis, our work offers a new perspective on the evolution of O3 pollution and can aid in developing effective and timely control policies under unfavorable weather conditions.
Sepehr Fathi, Paul Makar, Wanmin Gong, Junhua Zhang, Katherine Hayden, and Mark Gordon
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1655, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1655, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Our study explores the influence of water phase changes in plumes from industrial sources on atmospheric dispersion of emitted pollutants and air quality. Employing PRISM (Plume-Rise-Iterative-Stratified-Moist), a new method, we found that considering these effects significantly improves predictions of pollutant dispersion. This insight enhances our understanding of environmental impacts, enabling more accurate air quality modeling, and fostering more effective pollution management strategies.
Fabian Maier, Christian Rödenbeck, Ingeborg Levin, Christoph Gerbig, Maksym Gachkivskyi, and Samuel Hammer
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 8183–8203, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8183-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8183-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We investigate the usage of discrete radiocarbon (14C)-based fossil fuel carbon dioxide (ffCO2) concentration estimates vs. continuous carbon monoxide (CO)-based ffCO2 estimates to evaluate the seasonal cycle of ffCO2 emissions in an urban region with an inverse modeling framework. We find that the CO-based ffCO2 estimates allow us to reconstruct robust seasonal cycles, which show the distinct COVID-19 drawdown in 2020 and can be used to validate emission inventories.
Kevin Oliveira, Marc Guevara, Oriol Jorba, Hervé Petetin, Dene Bowdalo, Carles Tena, Gilbert Montané Pinto, Franco López, and Carlos Pérez García-Pando
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 7137–7177, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-7137-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-7137-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
In this work, we assess and evaluate benzene, toluene, and xylene primary emissions and air quality levels in Spain by combining observations, emission inventories, and air quality modelling techniques. The comparison between modelled and observed levels allows identifying uncertainty sources within the emission input. This contributes to improving air quality models' performance when simulating these compounds, leading to better support for the design of effective pollution control strategies.
Yuehan Luo, Tianliang Zhao, Kai Meng, Jun Hu, Qingjian Yang, Yongqing Bai, Kai Yang, Weikang Fu, Chenghao Tan, Yifan Zhang, Yanzhe Zhang, and Zhikuan Li
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 7013–7026, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-7013-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-7013-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We reveal a significant mechanism of stratospheric O3 intrusion (SI) into the atmospheric environment induced by an extratropical cyclone system. This system facilitates the downward transport of stratospheric O3 to the near-surface layer by vertical coupling, involving the upper westerly trough, the middle northeast cold vortex, and the lower extratropical cyclone in the troposphere. On average, stratospheric O3 contributed 26.77 % to near-surface O3 levels over the North China Plain.
Cheng Zheng, Yutian Wu, Mingfang Ting, and Clara Orbe
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 6965–6985, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-6965-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-6965-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Trace gases and aerosols in the Arctic, which typically originate from midlatitude and tropical emission regions, modulate the Arctic climate via their radiative and chemistry impacts. Thus, long-range transport of these substances is important for understanding the current and the future change of Arctic climate. By employing chemistry–climate models, we explore how year-to-year variations in the atmospheric circulation modulate atmospheric long-range transport into the Arctic.
Sophie Wittig, Antoine Berchet, Isabelle Pison, Marielle Saunois, and Jean-Daniel Paris
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 6359–6373, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-6359-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-6359-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The aim of this work is to analyse how accurately a methane bomb event could be detected with the current and a hypothetically extended stationary observation network in the Arctic. For this, we incorporate synthetically modelled possible future CH4 concentrations based on plausible emission scenarios into an inverse modelling framework. We analyse how well the increase is detected in different Arctic regions and evaluate the impact of additional observation sites in this respect.
Vishnu Thilakan, Dhanyalekshmi Pillai, Jithin Sukumaran, Christoph Gerbig, Haseeb Hakkim, Vinayak Sinha, Yukio Terao, Manish Naja, and Monish Vijay Deshpande
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 5315–5335, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5315-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5315-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
This study investigates the usability of CO2 mixing ratio observations over India to infer regional carbon sources and sinks. We demonstrate that a high-resolution modelling system can represent the observed CO2 variations reasonably well by improving the transport and flux variations at a fine scale. Future carbon data assimilation systems can thus benefit from these recently available CO2 observations when fine-scale variations are adequately represented in the models.
Rostislav Kouznetsov, Risto Hänninen, Andreas Uppstu, Evgeny Kadantsev, Yalda Fatahi, Marje Prank, Dmitrii Kouznetsov, Steffen Manfred Noe, Heikki Junninen, and Mikhail Sofiev
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 4675–4691, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-4675-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-4675-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
By relying solely on publicly available media reports, we were able to infer the temporal evolution and the injection height for the Nord Stream gas leaks in September 2022. The inventory specifies locations, vertical distributions, and temporal evolution of the methane sources. The inventory can be used to simulate the event with atmospheric transport models. The inventory is supplemented with a set of observational data tailored to evaluate the results of the simulated atmospheric dispersion.
Michael Steiner, Wouter Peters, Ingrid Luijkx, Stephan Henne, Huilin Chen, Samuel Hammer, and Dominik Brunner
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 2759–2782, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-2759-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-2759-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The Paris Agreement increased interest in estimating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of individual countries, but top-down emission estimation is not yet considered policy-relevant. It is therefore paramount to reduce large errors and to build systems that are based on the newest atmospheric transport models. In this study, we present the first application of ICON-ART in the inverse modeling of GHG fluxes with an ensemble Kalman filter and present our results for European CH4 emissions.
Nan Wang, Hongyue Wang, Xin Huang, Xi Chen, Yu Zou, Tao Deng, Tingyuan Li, Xiaopu Lyu, and Fumo Yang
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 1559–1570, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-1559-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-1559-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
This study explores the influence of extreme-weather-induced natural processes on ozone pollution, which is often overlooked. By analyzing meteorological factors, natural emissions, chemistry pathways and atmospheric transport, we discovered that these natural processes could substantially exacerbate ozone pollution. The findings contribute to a deeper understanding of ozone pollution and offer valuable insights for controlling ozone pollution in the context of global warming.
Jia Mao, Amos P. K. Tai, David H. Y. Yung, Tiangang Yuan, Kong T. Chau, and Zhaozhong Feng
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 345–366, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-345-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-345-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Surface ozone (O3) is well-known for posing great threats to both human health and agriculture worldwide. However, a multidecadal assessment of the impacts of O3 on public health and agriculture in China is lacking without sufficient O3 observations. We used a hybrid approach combining a chemical transport model and machine learning to provide a robust dataset of O3 concentrations over the past 4 decades in China, thereby filling the gap in the long-term O3 trend and impact assessment in China.
Leon Kuhn, Steffen Beirle, Vinod Kumar, Sergey Osipov, Andrea Pozzer, Tim Bösch, Rajesh Kumar, and Thomas Wagner
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 185–217, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-185-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-185-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
NO₂ is an important air pollutant. It was observed that the WRF-Chem model shows significant deviations in NO₂ abundance when compared to measurements. We use a 1-month simulation over central Europe to show that these deviations can be mostly resolved by reparameterization of the vertical mixing routine. In order to validate our results, they are compared to in situ, satellite, and MAX-DOAS measurements.
Ondřej Tichý, Sabine Eckhardt, Yves Balkanski, Didier Hauglustaine, and Nikolaos Evangeliou
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 15235–15252, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-15235-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-15235-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
We show declining trends in NH3 emissions over Europe for 2013–2020 using advanced dispersion and inverse modelling and satellite measurements from CrIS. Emissions decreased by −26% since 2013, showing that the abatement strategies adopted by the European Union have been very efficient. Ammonia emissions are low in winter and peak in summer due to temperature-dependent soil volatilization. The largest decreases were observed in central and western Europe in countries with high emissions.
Yusuf A. Bhatti, Laura E. Revell, Alex J. Schuddeboom, Adrian J. McDonald, Alex T. Archibald, Jonny Williams, Abhijith U. Venugopal, Catherine Hardacre, and Erik Behrens
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 15181–15196, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-15181-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-15181-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Aerosols are a large source of uncertainty over the Southern Ocean. A dominant source of sulfate aerosol in this region is dimethyl sulfide (DMS), which is poorly simulated by climate models. We show the sensitivity of simulated atmospheric DMS to the choice of oceanic DMS data set and emission scheme. We show that oceanic DMS has twice the influence on atmospheric DMS than the emission scheme. Simulating DMS more accurately in climate models will help to constrain aerosol uncertainty.
Maryam Golbazi and Cristina Archer
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 15057–15075, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-15057-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-15057-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
We use scientific models to study the impact of ship emissions on air quality along the US East Coast. We find an increase in three major pollutants (PM2.5, NO2, and SO2) in coastal regions. However, we detect a reduction in ozone (O3) levels in major coastal cities. This reduction is linked to the significant emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) from ships, which scavenged O3, especially in highly polluted urban areas experiencing an NOx-limited regime.
Xinxu Zhao, Jia Chen, Julia Marshall, Michal Gałkowski, Stephan Hachinger, Florian Dietrich, Ankit Shekhar, Johannes Gensheimer, Adrian Wenzel, and Christoph Gerbig
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 14325–14347, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-14325-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-14325-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
We develop a modeling framework using the Weather Research and Forecasting model at a high spatial resolution (up to 400 m) to simulate atmospheric transport of greenhouse gases and interpret column observations. Output is validated against weather stations and column measurements in August 2018. The differential column method is applied, aided by air-mass transport tracing with the Stochastic Time-Inverted Lagrangian Transport (STILT) model, also for an exploratory measurement interpretation.
Ioannis Katharopoulos, Dominique Rust, Martin K. Vollmer, Dominik Brunner, Stefan Reimann, Simon J. O'Doherty, Dickon Young, Kieran M. Stanley, Tanja Schuck, Jgor Arduini, Lukas Emmenegger, and Stephan Henne
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 14159–14186, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-14159-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-14159-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
The effectiveness of climate change mitigation needs to be scrutinized by monitoring greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Countries report their emissions to the UN in a bottom-up manner. By combining atmospheric observations and transport models someone can independently validate emission estimates in a top-down fashion. We report Swiss emissions of synthetic GHGs based on kilometer-scale transport and inverse modeling, highlighting the role of appropriate resolution in complex terrain.
Tianfeng Chai, Xinrong Ren, Fong Ngan, Mark Cohen, and Alice Crawford
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 12907–12933, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-12907-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-12907-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
The SO2 emissions of three power plants are estimated using aircraft observations and an ensemble of HYSPLIT dispersion simulations with different plume rise parameters. The emission estimates using the runs with the lowest root mean square errors (RMSEs) and the runs with the best correlation coefficients between the predicted and observed mixing ratios both agree well with the Continuous Emissions Monitoring Systems (CEMS) data. The RMSE-based plume rise appears to be more reasonable.
Jinghui Lian, Thomas Lauvaux, Hervé Utard, François-Marie Bréon, Grégoire Broquet, Michel Ramonet, Olivier Laurent, Ivonne Albarus, Mali Chariot, Simone Kotthaus, Martial Haeffelin, Olivier Sanchez, Olivier Perrussel, Hugo Anne Denier van der Gon, Stijn Nicolaas Camiel Dellaert, and Philippe Ciais
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 8823–8835, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-8823-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-8823-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
This study quantifies urban CO2 emissions via an atmospheric inversion for the Paris metropolitan area over a 6-year period from 2016 to 2021. Results show a long-term decreasing trend of about 2 % ± 0.6 % per year in the annual CO2 emissions over Paris. We conclude that our current capacity can deliver near-real-time CO2 emission estimates at the city scale in under a month, and the results agree within 10 % with independent estimates from multiple city-scale inventories.
Fu-Jie Zhu, Peng-Tuan Hu, and Wan-Li Ma
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 8583–8590, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-8583-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-8583-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
A new steady-state gas–particle partitioning model of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons was established based on the level-III multimedia fugacity model, which proved that the particulate proportion of PAHs in emissions was a crucial factor for G–P partitioning of PAHs. In addition, gaseous and particulate interference was also derived in the new steady-state model determined by the particulate proportion in emission that could derivate the G–P partitioning quotients from the equilibrium state.
Christian Hogrefe, Jesse O. Bash, Jonathan E. Pleim, Donna B. Schwede, Robert C. Gilliam, Kristen M. Foley, K. Wyat Appel, and Rohit Mathur
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 8119–8147, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-8119-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-8119-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Under the umbrella of the fourth phase of the Air Quality Model Evaluation International Initiative (AQMEII4), this study applies AQMEII4 diagnostic tools to better characterize how dry deposition removes pollutants from the atmosphere in the widely used CMAQ model. The results illustrate how these tools can provide insights into similarities and differences between the two CMAQ dry deposition options that affect simulated pollutant budgets and ecosystem impacts from atmospheric pollution.
Kun Qu, Xuesong Wang, Xuhui Cai, Yu Yan, Xipeng Jin, Mihalis Vrekoussis, Maria Kanakidou, Guy P. Brasseur, Jin Shen, Teng Xiao, Limin Zeng, and Yuanhang Zhang
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 7653–7671, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-7653-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-7653-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Basic understandings of ozone processes, especially transport and chemistry, are essential to support ozone pollution control, but studies often have different views on their relative importance. We developed a method to quantify their contributions in the ozone mass and concentration budgets based on the WRF-CMAQ model. Results in a polluted region highlight the differences between two budgets. For future studies, two budgets are both needed to fully understand the effects of ozone processes.
Emily Dowd, Chris Wilson, Martyn P. Chipperfield, Emanuel Gloor, Alistair Manning, and Ruth Doherty
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 7363–7382, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-7363-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-7363-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Surface observations of methane show that the seasonal cycle amplitude (SCA) of methane is decreasing in the northern high latitudes (NHLs) but increased globally (1995–2020). The NHL decrease is counterintuitive, as we expect the SCA to increase with increasing concentrations. We use a chemical transport model to investigate changes in SCA in the NHLs. We find well-mixed methane and changes in emissions from Canada, the Middle East, and Europe are the largest contributors to the SCA in NHLs.
Danyang Ma, Tijian Wang, Hao Wu, Yawei Qu, Jian Liu, Jane Liu, Shu Li, Bingliang Zhuang, Mengmeng Li, and Min Xie
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 6525–6544, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-6525-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-6525-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Increasing surface ozone (O3) concentrations have long been a significant environmental issue in China, despite the Clean Air Action Plan launched in 2013. Most previous research ignores the contributions of CO2 variations. Our study comprehensively analyzed O3 variation across China from various perspectives and highlighted the importance of considering CO2 variations when designing long-term O3 control policies, especially in high-vegetation-coverage areas.
Jackson Hian-Wui Chang, Stephen M. Griffith, Steven Soon-Kai Kong, Ming-Tung Chuang, and Neng-Huei Lin
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 6357–6382, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-6357-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-6357-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
A novel CMAQ–PMF-based composite index is developed to identify the key VOC source species for an effective ozone abatement strategy. The index provides information as to which VOC species are key to ozone formation and where to reduce sources of these VOC species. Using the composite index, we recommended the VOC control measures in southern Taiwan should prioritize solvent usage, vehicle emissions, and the petrochemical industry.
Lei Duan and Ken Caldeira
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 6011–6020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-6011-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-6011-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Ocko and Hamburg (2022) emphasize the short-term climate impact of hydrogen, and we present an analysis that places greater focus on long-term outcomes. We have derived equations that describe the time-evolving impact of hydrogen and show that higher methane leakage is primarily responsible for the warming potential of blue hydrogen, while hydrogen leakage plays a less critical role. Fossil fuels show more prominent longer-term climate impacts than clean hydrogen under all emission scenarios.
Lixu Jin, Wade Permar, Vanessa Selimovic, Damien Ketcherside, Robert J. Yokelson, Rebecca S. Hornbrook, Eric C. Apel, I-Ting Ku, Jeffrey L. Collett Jr., Amy P. Sullivan, Daniel A. Jaffe, Jeffrey R. Pierce, Alan Fried, Matthew M. Coggon, Georgios I. Gkatzelis, Carsten Warneke, Emily V. Fischer, and Lu Hu
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 5969–5991, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-5969-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-5969-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Air quality in the USA has been improving since 1970 due to anthropogenic emission reduction. Those gains have been partly offset by increased wildfire pollution in the western USA in the past 20 years. Still, we do not understand wildfire emissions well due to limited measurements. Here, we used a global transport model to evaluate and constrain current knowledge of wildfire emissions with recent observational constraints, showing the underestimation of wildfire emissions in the western USA.
Zichong Chen, Daniel J. Jacob, Ritesh Gautam, Mark Omara, Robert N. Stavins, Robert C. Stowe, Hannah Nesser, Melissa P. Sulprizio, Alba Lorente, Daniel J. Varon, Xiao Lu, Lu Shen, Zhen Qu, Drew C. Pendergrass, and Sarah Hancock
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 5945–5967, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-5945-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-5945-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
We quantify methane emissions from individual countries in the Middle East and North Africa by inverse analysis of 2019 TROPOMI satellite observations of atmospheric methane. We show that the ability to simply relate oil/gas emissions to activity metrics is compromised by stochastic nature of local infrastructure and management practices. We find that the industry target for oil/gas methane intensity is achievable through associated gas capture, modern infrastructure, and centralized operations.
Yuting Wang, Yong-Feng Ma, Domingo Muñoz-Esparza, Jianing Dai, Cathy Wing Yi Li, Pablo Lichtig, Roy Chun-Wang Tsang, Chun-Ho Liu, Tao Wang, and Guy Pierre Brasseur
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 5905–5927, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-5905-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-5905-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Air quality in urban areas is difficult to simulate in coarse-resolution models. This work exploits the WRF (Weather Research and Forecasting) model coupled with a large-eddy simulation (LES) component and online chemistry to perform high-resolution (33.3 m) simulations of air quality in a large city. The evaluation of the simulations with observations shows that increased model resolution improves the representation of the chemical species near the pollution sources.
Shuqi Yan, Bin Zhu, Shuangshuang Shi, Wen Lu, Jinhui Gao, Hanqing Kang, and Duanyang Liu
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 5177–5190, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-5177-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-5177-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
We analyze ozone response to aerosol mixing states in the vertical direction by WRF-Chem simulations. Aerosols generally lead to turbulent suppression, precursor accumulation, low-level photolysis reduction, and upper-level photolysis enhancement under different underlying surface and pollution conditions. Thus, ozone decreases within the entire boundary layer during the daytime, and the decrease is the least in aerosol external mixing states compared to internal and core shell mixing states.
Ida Storm, Ute Karstens, Claudio D'Onofrio, Alex Vermeulen, and Wouter Peters
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 4993–5008, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-4993-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-4993-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
In this study, we evaluate what is in the influence regions of the ICOS atmospheric measurement stations to gain insight into what land cover types and land-cover-associated fluxes the network represents. Subsequently, insights about strengths, weaknesses, and potential gaps can assist in future network expansion decisions. The network is concentrated in central Europe, which leads to a general overrepresentation of coniferous forest and cropland and underrepresentation of grass and shrubland.
Anna Agustí-Panareda, Jérôme Barré, Sébastien Massart, Antje Inness, Ilse Aben, Melanie Ades, Bianca C. Baier, Gianpaolo Balsamo, Tobias Borsdorff, Nicolas Bousserez, Souhail Boussetta, Michael Buchwitz, Luca Cantarello, Cyril Crevoisier, Richard Engelen, Henk Eskes, Johannes Flemming, Sébastien Garrigues, Otto Hasekamp, Vincent Huijnen, Luke Jones, Zak Kipling, Bavo Langerock, Joe McNorton, Nicolas Meilhac, Stefan Noël, Mark Parrington, Vincent-Henri Peuch, Michel Ramonet, Miha Razinger, Maximilian Reuter, Roberto Ribas, Martin Suttie, Colm Sweeney, Jérôme Tarniewicz, and Lianghai Wu
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 3829–3859, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-3829-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-3829-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
We present a global dataset of atmospheric CO2 and CH4, the two most important human-made greenhouse gases, which covers almost 2 decades (2003–2020). It is produced by combining satellite data of CO2 and CH4 with a weather and air composition prediction model, and it has been carefully evaluated against independent observations to ensure validity and point out deficiencies to the user. This dataset can be used for scientific studies in the field of climate change and the global carbon cycle.
Dominik Brunner, Gerrit Kuhlmann, Stephan Henne, Erik Koene, Bastian Kern, Sebastian Wolff, Christiane Voigt, Patrick Jöckel, Christoph Kiemle, Anke Roiger, Alina Fiehn, Sven Krautwurst, Konstantin Gerilowski, Heinrich Bovensmann, Jakob Borchardt, Michal Galkowski, Christoph Gerbig, Julia Marshall, Andrzej Klonecki, Pascal Prunet, Robert Hanfland, Margit Pattantyús-Ábrahám, Andrzej Wyszogrodzki, and Andreas Fix
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 2699–2728, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-2699-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-2699-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
We evaluated six atmospheric transport models for their capability to simulate the CO2 plumes from two of the largest power plants in Europe by comparing the models against aircraft observations collected during the CoMet (Carbon Dioxide and Methane Mission) campaign in 2018. The study analyzed how realistically such plumes can be simulated at different model resolutions and how well the planned European satellite mission CO2M will be able to quantify emissions from power plants.
Chenchao Zhan, Min Xie, Hua Lu, Bojun Liu, Zheng Wu, Tijian Wang, Bingliang Zhuang, Mengmeng Li, and Shu Li
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 771–788, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-771-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-771-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
With the development of urbanization, urban land use and anthropogenic
emissions increase, affecting urban air quality and, in turn, the health risks associated with air pollutants. In this study, we systematically evaluate the impacts of urbanization on air quality and the corresponding health risks in a highly urbanized city with severe air pollution and complex terrain. This work focuses on the health risks caused by urbanization and can provide valuable insight for air pollution strategies.
Hélène Peiro, Sean Crowell, and Berrien Moore III
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 15817–15849, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-15817-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-15817-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
CO data can provide a powerful constraint on fire fluxes, supporting more accurate estimation of biospheric CO2 fluxes. We converted CO fire flux into CO2 fire prior, which is then used to adjust CO2 respiration. We applied this to two other fire flux products. CO2 inversions constrained by satellites or in situ data are then performed. Results show larger variations among the data assimilated than across the priors, but tropical flux from in situ inversions is sensitive to priors.
Zhaofeng Lv, Zhenyu Luo, Fanyuan Deng, Xiaotong Wang, Junchao Zhao, Lucheng Xu, Tingkun He, Yingzhi Zhang, Huan Liu, and Kebin He
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 15685–15702, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-15685-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-15685-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
This study developed a hybrid model, CMAQ-RLINE_URBAN, to predict the urban NO2 concentrations at a high spatial resolution. To estimate the influence of various street canyons on the dispersion of air pollutants, a new parameterization scheme was established based on computational fluid dynamics and machine learning methods. This work created a new method to identify the characteristics of vehicle-related air pollution at both city and street scales simultaneously and accurately.
Vishnu Thilakan, Dhanyalekshmi Pillai, Christoph Gerbig, Michal Galkowski, Aparnna Ravi, and Thara Anna Mathew
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 15287–15312, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-15287-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-15287-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
This paper demonstrates how we can use atmospheric observations to improve the CO2 flux estimates in India. This is achieved by improving the representation of terrain, mesoscale transport, and flux variations. We quantify the impact of the unresolved variations in the current models on optimally estimated fluxes via inverse modelling and quantify the associated flux uncertainty. We illustrate how a parameterization scheme captures this variability in the coarse models.
Zichong Chen, Daniel J. Jacob, Hannah Nesser, Melissa P. Sulprizio, Alba Lorente, Daniel J. Varon, Xiao Lu, Lu Shen, Zhen Qu, Elise Penn, and Xueying Yu
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 10809–10826, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-10809-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-10809-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
We quantify methane emissions in China and contributions from different sectors by inverse analysis of 2019 TROPOMI satellite observations of atmospheric methane. We find that anthropogenic methane emissions for China are underestimated in the national inventory. Our estimate of emissions indicates a small life-cycle loss rate, implying net climate benefits from the current
coal-to-gasenergy transition in China. However, this small loss rate can be misleading given China's high gas imports.
Naveen Chandra, Prabir K. Patra, Yousuke Niwa, Akihiko Ito, Yosuke Iida, Daisuke Goto, Shinji Morimoto, Masayuki Kondo, Masayuki Takigawa, Tomohiro Hajima, and Michio Watanabe
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 9215–9243, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-9215-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-9215-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
This paper is intended to accomplish two goals: (1) quantify mean and uncertainty in non-fossil-fuel CO2 fluxes estimated by inverse modeling and (2) provide in-depth analyses of regional CO2 fluxes in support of emission mitigation policymaking. CO2 flux variability and trends are discussed concerning natural climate variability and human disturbances using multiple lines of evidence.
Ruben B. Schulte, Margreet C. van Zanten, Bart J. H. van Stratum, and Jordi Vilà-Guerau de Arellano
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 8241–8257, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-8241-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-8241-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
We present a fine-scale simulation framework, utilizing large-eddy simulations, to assess NH3 measurements influenced by boundary-layer dynamics and turbulent dispersion of a nearby emission source. The minimum required distance from an emission source differs for concentration and flux measurements, from 0.5–3.0 km and 0.75–4.5 km, respectively. The simulation framework presented here proves to be a powerful and versatile tool for future NH3 research at high spatio-temporal resolutions.
Sieglinde Callewaert, Jérôme Brioude, Bavo Langerock, Valentin Duflot, Dominique Fonteyn, Jean-François Müller, Jean-Marc Metzger, Christian Hermans, Nicolas Kumps, Michel Ramonet, Morgan Lopez, Emmanuel Mahieu, and Martine De Mazière
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 7763–7792, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-7763-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-7763-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
A regional atmospheric transport model is used to analyze the factors contributing to CO2, CH4, and CO observations at Réunion Island. We show that the surface observations are dominated by local fluxes and dynamical processes, while the column data are influenced by larger-scale mechanisms such as biomass burning plumes. The model is able to capture the measured time series well; however, the results are highly dependent on accurate boundary conditions and high-resolution emission inventories.
Anja Ražnjević, Chiel van Heerwaarden, Bart van Stratum, Arjan Hensen, Ilona Velzeboer, Pim van den Bulk, and Maarten Krol
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 6489–6505, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-6489-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-6489-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
Mobile measurement techniques (e.g., instruments placed in cars) are often employed to identify and quantify individual sources of greenhouse gases. Due to road restrictions, those observations are often sparse (temporally and spatially). We performed high-resolution simulations of plume dispersion, with realistic weather conditions encountered in the field, to reproduce the measurement process of a methane plume emitted from an oil well and provide additional information about the plume.
Cited articles
Andres, R. J., Boden, T. A., Bréon, F.-M., Ciais, P., Davis, S., Erickson, D., Gregg, J. S., Jacobson, A., Marland, G., Miller, J., Oda, T., Olivier, J. G. J., Raupach, M. R., Rayner, P., and Treanton, K.: A synthesis of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel combustion, Biogeosciences, 9, 1845–1871, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-9-1845-2012, 2012. a
Andres, R. J., Boden, T. A., and Higdon, D.: A new evaluation of the uncertainty associated with CDIAC estimates of fossil fuel carbon dioxide emission, Tellus B, 66, 23616, https://doi.org/10.3402/tellusb.v66.23616, 2014. a
Archibald, S. A., Kirton, A., van der Merwe, M. R., Scholes, R. J., Williams, C. A., and Hanan, N.: Drivers of inter-annual variability in Net Ecosystem Exchange in a semi-arid savanna ecosystem, South Africa, Biogeosciences, 6, 251–266, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-6-251-2009, 2009. a
Bellassen, V. and Stephan, N.: Accounting for carbon: Monitoring, reporting and verifying emissions in the climate economy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2015. a
Boden, T. A., Marland, G., and Andres, R. J.: Global, regional, and national fossil fuel CO2 emissions, Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge, Tenn., USA, https://doi.org/10.3334/CDIAC/00001_V2011, 2011. a
Boon, A., Broquet, G., Clifford, D. J., Chevallier, F., Butterfield, D. M., Pison, I., Ramonet, M., Paris, J.-D., and Ciais, P.: Analysis of the potential of near-ground measurements of CO2 and CH4 in London, UK, for the monitoring of city-scale emissions using an atmospheric transport model, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 6735–6756, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-6735-2016, 2016. a
Bréon, F. M., Broquet, G., Puygrenier, V., Chevallier, F., Xueref-Remy, I., Ramonet, M., Dieudonné, E., Lopez, M., Schmidt, M., Perrussel, O., and Ciais, P.: An attempt at estimating Paris area CO2 emissions from atmospheric concentration measurements, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 1707–1724, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-1707-2015, 2015. a, b, c, d, e, f, g
Brioude, J., Angevine, W. M., Ahmadov, R., Kim, S.-W., Evan, S., McKeen, S. A., Hsie, E.-Y., Frost, G. J., Neuman, J. A., Pollack, I. B., Peischl, J., Ryerson, T. B., Holloway, J., Brown, S. S., Nowak, J. B., Roberts, J. M., Wofsy, S. C., Santoni, G. W., Oda, T., and Trainer, M.: Top-down estimate of surface flux in the Los Angeles Basin using a mesoscale inverse modeling technique: assessing anthropogenic emissions of CO, NOx and CO2 and their impacts, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13, 3661–3677, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-3661-2013, 2013. a
Brunke, E. -G, Labuschagne, C., Parker, B., Scheel, H. E, and Wittlestone, S.: Baseline air mass selection at Cape Point,South Africa: application of 222Rn and other filter criteria to CO2, Atmos. Environ., 38, 5693–5702, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2004.04.024, 2004. a, b, c
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., Morgui, 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, https://doi.org/10.1029/2010JD013887, 2010. a
Department of Environmental Affairs (South Africa): South African National Terrestrial Carbon Sink Assessment, Department of Environmental Affairs, Pretoria, South Africa, 2015. a
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra): UK ship emissions inventory, Final report, London: Crown, available at: http://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/assets/documents/reports/cat15/1012131459_21897_Final_Report_291110.pdf (last access: 12 January 2014), 2010. a
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra): Government GHG conversion factors for company reporting: Methodology paper for emission factors, London: Crown, available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/224437/pb13988-emission-factor-methodology-130719.pdf (last access: 23 March 2014), 2013. a
Duren, R. M. and Miller, C. E.: Measuring the carbon emissions of megacities, Nat. Clim. Change, 2, 560–562, https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1629, 2012. a
Engelbrecht, F. A., McGregor, J. L., and Engelbrecht, C. J.: Dynamics of the conformal-cubic atmospheric model projected climate-change signal over southern Africa, Int. J. Climatol., 29, 1013–1033, doi:10.1002/joc.1742.29, 2009. a
Engelbrecht, F. A., Landman, W. A., Engelbrecht, C. J., Landman, S., Bopane, M. M., Roux, B., McGregor, J. L., and Thatcher, M.: Multi-scale climate modelling over Southern Africa using variable-resolution global model, Water Research Commission 40-Year Celebration Conference, Kempton Park, 31 August–1 September 2011, https://doi.org/10.4314/wsa.v37i5.2, 2011. a
Engelbrecht, C. J., Engelbrecht, F. A. and Dyson, L. L.: High-resolution model-projected changes in tropospheric closed-lows and extreme rainfall events over southern Africa, Int. J. Climatol., 33, 173–187, doi:10.1002/joc.3420, 2013. a
Engelbrecht, F., Adegoke, J., Bopape, M-J., Naidoo, M., Garland, R., Thatcher, M., McGregor, J., Katzfey, J., Werner, M., Ichoku, C., and Gatebe, C.: Projections of rapidly rising surface temperatures over Africa, Environ. Res. Lett., 10, 085004, https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/10/8/085004, 2015. a
Exbrayat, J.-F., Pitman, A. J. Abramowitz, G., and Wang, Y.-P.: Sensitivity of net ecosystem exchange and heterotrophic respiration to parameterization uncertainty, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 118, 1640–1651, https://doi.org/10.1029/2012JD018122, 2013. a
Feng, S., Lauvaux, T., Newman, S., Rao, P., Ahmadov, R., Deng, A., Díaz-Isaac, L. I., Duren, R. M., Fischer, M. L., Gerbig, C., Gurney, K. R., Huang, J., Jeong, S., Li, Z., Miller, C. E., O'Keeffe, D., Patarasuk, R., Sander, S. P., Song, Y., Wong, K. W., and Yung, Y. L.: Los Angeles megacity: a high-resolution land–atmosphere modelling system for urban CO2 emissions, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 9019–9045, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-9019-2016, 2016. a
Ganesan, A. L., Rigby, M., Zammit-Mangion, A., Manning, A. J., Prinn, R. G., Fraser, P. J., Harth, C. M., Kim, K.-R., Krummel, P. B., Li, S., Mühle, J., O'Doherty, S. J., Park, S., Salameh, P. K., Steele, L. P., and Weiss, R. F.: Characterization of uncertainties in atmospheric trace gas inversions using hierarchical Bayesian methods, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 14, 3855–3864, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-3855-2014, 2014. a
Gregor, L. and Monteiro, P. M. S.: Is the southern Benguela a significant regional sink of CO2?, S. Afr. J. Sci., 109, #0094, https://doi.org/10.1590/sajs.2013/20120094, 2013. a, b
Gurney, K. R., Razlivanov, I., Song, Y., Zhou, Y., Benes, B., and Abdul–Massih, M.: Quantification of fossil fuel CO2 emissions on the building/street scale for a large U.S. city, Environ. Sci. Technol., 46, 12194–12202, https://doi.org/10.1021/es3011282, 2012. a
Hutyra, L., Duren, R., Gurney, K. R., Grimm, N., Kort, E. A., Larson, E., and Shrestha, G.: Urbanization and the carbon cycle: Current capabilities and research outlook from the natural sciences perspective, Earths Future, 2, 473–495, https://doi.org/10.1002/2014EF000255, 2014. a
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): Good practice guidance and uncertainty management in national greenhouse gas inventories, Montreal: IPCC, 93–102, available at: http://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/public/gp/english/ (last access: 23 March 2014), 2000. a
Jackson, D. D.: The use of a priori data to resolve non-uniqueness in linear inversion, Geophys. J. R. Astr. Soc., 57, 137–157, 1979. a
Jackson, D. D and Matsu'ura, M.: A Bayesian approach to nonlinear inversion, J. Geophys. Res., 90, 581–591, 1985. a
Janssens-Maenhout, G., Pagliari, V., Guizzardi, D., and Muntean, M.: Global emission inventories in the Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) -– Manual (I), Gridding: EDGAR emissions distribution on global gridmaps, Joint Research Centre, Luxembourg: European Union, 33 pp., https://doi.org/10.2788/81454, 2012. a
Kalnay, E., Kanamitsu, M., Kistler, R., Collins, W., Deaven, D., Gandin, L., Iredell, M., Saha, S., White, G., Woollen, J., Zhu, Y., Chelliah, M., Ebisuzaki, W., Higgins, W., Janowiak, J., Mo, K. C., Ropelewski, C., Wang, J., Leetmaa, A., Reynolds, R., Jenne, R., and Joseph, D.: The NCEP/NCAR 40-year reanalysis project, B. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 77, 437–472, 1996. a
Karion, A., Lauvaux, T., Lopez Coto, I., Sweeney, C., Mueller, K., Gourdji, S., Angevine, W., Barkley, Z., Deng, A., Andrews, A., Stein, A., and Whetstone, J.: Intercomparison of atmospheric trace gas dispersion models: Barnett Shale case study, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 2561–2576, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-2561-2019, 2019. a, b
Kort, E. A., Angevine, W. M., Duren, R., and Miller, C. E.: Surface observations for monitoring urban fossil fuel CO2 emissions: minimum site location requirements for the Los Angeles megacity, J. Geophys. Res., 118, 1–8, https://doi.org/10.1002/jgrd.50135, 2013. a
Kowalczyk, E. A., Wang, Y. P., and Law, R. M.: CSIRO Atmosphere Biosphere Land Exchange
model for use in climate models and as an offline model, CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research technical paper XXV, ISBN 1921232390, 2006. a
Lauvaux, T., Pannekoucke, O., Sarrat, C., Chevallier, F., Ciais, P., Noilhan, J., and Rayner, P. J.: Structure of the transport uncertainty in mesoscale inversions of CO2 sources and sinks using ensemble model simulations, Biogeosciences, 6, 1089–1102, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-6-1089-2009, 2009. a
Lauvaux, T., Schuh, A. E., Uliasz, M., Richardson, S., Miles, N., Andrews, A. E., Sweeney, C., Diaz, L. I., Martins, D., Shepson, P. B., and Davis, K. J.: Constraining the CO2 budget of the corn belt: exploring uncertainties from the assumptions in a mesoscale inverse system, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 12, 337–354, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-12-337-2012, 2012. a, b
Lauvaux, T., Miles, N. L., Richardson, S. J., Deng, A., Stauffer, D. R., Davis, K. J., Jacobson, G., Rella, C., Calonder, G.-P., and DeCola, P. L.: Urban emissions of CO2 from Davos, Switzerland: the first real-time monitoring system using atmospheric inversion technique, J. Appl. Meteorol. Climatol., 52, 2654–2668, https://doi.org/10.1175/JAMC-D-13-038.1, 2013. a
Lauvaux, T., Miles, N. L., Deng, A. Richardson, S. J., Cambaliza, M. O., Davis, K. J., Gaudet, B., Gurney, K. R., Huang, J., O'Keefe, D., Song, Y., Karion, A., Oda, T., Patarasuk, R., Razlivanov, I., Sarmiento, D., Shepson, P., Sweeney, C., Turnbull, J., and Wu, K.: High-resolution atmospheric inversion of urban CO2 emissions during the dormant season of the Indianapolis Flux Experiment (INFLUX), J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 121, 5213–5236, https://doi.org/10.1002/2015JD024473, 2016. a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m
Le Quéré, C., Andres, R. J., Boden, T., Conway, T., Houghton, R. A., House, J. I., Marland, G., Peters, G. P., van der Werf, G. R., Ahlström, A., Andrew, R. M., Bopp, L., Canadell, J. G., Ciais, P., Doney, S. C., Enright, C., Friedlingstein, P., Huntingford, C., Jain, A. K., Jourdain, C., Kato, E., Keeling, R. F., Klein Goldewijk, K., Levis, S., Levy, P., Lomas, M., Poulter, B., Raupach, M. R., Schwinger, J., Sitch, S., Stocker, B. D., Viovy, N., Zaehle, S., and Zeng, N.: The global carbon budget 1959–2011, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 5, 165–185, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-5-165-2013, 2013. a
McGregor, J. L.: Semi-Lagrangian advection on conformal-cubic grids, Mon. Weather Rev., 124, 1311–1322, https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0493(1996)124<1311:SLAOCC>2.0.CO;2, 1996. a
McGregor, J. L.: Geostrophic adjustment for reversibly staggered grids, Mon. Weather Rev., 133, 1119–1128, https://doi.org/10.1175/MWR2908.1, 2005a. a
McGregor, J. L.: C-CAM: Geometric aspects and dynamical formulation, CSIRO Atmospheric Research Technical Paper, No 70, 41, 2005b. a
McGregor, J. L. and Dix, M. R.: The CSIRO conformal-cubic atmospheric
GCM, in: IUTAM Symposium on Advances in Mathematical Modelling of
Atmosphere and Ocean Dynamics, Limerick, Ireland, 2–7 July 2000, edited by: Hodnett, P. F., Kluwer, Dordrecht, 197–202, 2001. a
McGregor, J. L. and Dix, M. R.: An updated description of the Conformal-Cubic Atmospheric Model, in: High Resolution Numerical Modelling of the Atmosphere and Ocean, edited by: Hamilton, K. and Ohfuchi, W., Springer, New York, USA, 51–76, 2008. a
McKain, K., Wofsy, S. C., Nehrkorn, T., Eluszkiewicz, J., Ehleringer, J. R., and Stephens, B. B.: Assessment of ground-based atmospheric observations for verification of greenhouse gas emissions from an urban region, P. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 109, 8423–8428, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1116645109, 2012. a
Michalak, A. M., Hirsch, A., Bruhwiler, L., Gurney, K. R., Peters, W., and Tans, P. P.: Maximum likelihood estimation of covariance parameters for Bayesian atmospheric trace gas surface flux inversions, J. Geophys. Res., 110, D24107, https://doi.org/10.1029/2005JD005970, 2005. a, b
Moncrieff, G. R., Scheiter, S. Slingsby, J. A., and Higgins, S. I.: Understanding global change impacts on South African biomes using Dynamic Vegetation Models, S. Afr. J. Bot., 101, 16–23, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sajb.2015.02.004, 2015. a, b, c
Nassar, R., Napier-Linton, L., Gurney, K. R., Andres, R. J., Oda, T., Vogel, F. R., and Deng, F.: Improving the temporal and spatial distribution of CO2 emissions from global fossil fuel emission data sets, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 118, 917-–933, https://doi.org/10.1029/2012JD018196, 2013. a
Nickless, A., Ziehn, T., Rayner, P. J., Scholes, R. J., and Engelbrecht, F.: Greenhouse gas network design using backward Lagrangian particle dispersion modelling – Part 2: Sensitivity analyses and South African test case, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 2051–2069, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-2051-2015, 2015b. a
Nickless, A., Rayner, P. J., Engelbrecht, F., Brunke, E.-G., Erni, B., and Scholes, R. J.: Estimates of CO2 fluxes over the city of Cape Town, South Africa, through Bayesian inverse modelling, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 4765–4801, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-4765-2018, 2018. a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r
Nickless, A.: Hourly averaged CO2 concentrations from Hangklip and Robben Island used for the Cape Town Inversion, data set, https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/RCFQ4, 2019.
NRC (Committee on Methods for Estimating Greenhouse Gas Emissions): Verifying greenhouse gas emissions: methods to support international climate agreements (9780309152112), The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2010. a
Oda, T. and Maksyutov, S.: A very high-resolution (1 km × 1 km) global fossil fuel CO2 emission inventory derived using a point source database and satellite observations of nighttime lights, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 11, 543–556, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-11-543-2011, 2011. a, b
Oda, T., Lauvaux, T., Lu, D., Rao, P., Miles, N. L., Richardson, S. J., and Gurney, K. R.: On the impact of granularity of space-based urban CO2 emissions in urban atmospheric inversions: A case study for Indianapolis, Elem. Sci. Anth., 5, 28, https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.146, 2017. a, b, c, d, e, f
Oda, T., Maksyutov, S., and Andres, R. J.: The Open-source Data Inventory for Anthropogenic CO2, version 2016 (ODIAC2016): a global monthly fossil fuel CO2 gridded emissions data product for tracer transport simulations and surface flux inversions, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 10, 87–107, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-10-87-2018, 2018. a, b
Rodgers, C. D.: Inverse methods for atmospheric sounding: theory and practice, World Scientific Publishing, Singapore, 2000. a
Roux, B.: Ultra high-resolution climate simulations over the Stellenbosch wine producing region using a variable-resolution model, MSc Thesis, Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, University of Pretoria, South Africa, 106 pp., 2009. a
Scholes, R. J., von Maltitz, G. P., Archibald, S. A., Wessels, K., van Zyl, T., Swanepoel, D., and Steenkamp, K.: National Carbon Sink Assessment for South Africa: First Estimate of Terrestrial Stocks and Fluxes, CSIR Technical Report, Pretoria, South Africa, CSIR/NRE/GC/ER/2013/0056/B, 2013. a
Seibert, P. and Frank, A.: Source-receptor matrix calculation with a Lagrangian particle dispersion model in backward mode, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 4, 51–63, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-4-51-2004, 2004. a, b
Seto, K. C., Dhakal, S., Bigio, A., Blanco, H., Delgado, G. C., Dewar, D., Huang, L., Inaba, A., Kansal, A., Lwasa, S., McMahon, J. E., Müller, D. B., Murakami, J., Nagendra, H., and Ramaswami, A.: Human settlements, infrastructure and spatial planning, in: Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change, Contribution of Working Group III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, edited by: Edenhofer, O., Pichs-Madruga, R., Sokona, Y., Farahani, E., Kadner, S., Seyboth, K., Adler, A., Baum, I., Brunner, S., Eickemeier, P., Kriemann, B., Savolainen, J., Schlömer, S., von Stechow, C., Zwickel, T., and Minx, J. C., Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, 2014. a
South African Department of Energy: Digest of South African energy statistics, Pretoria: Department of Energy, available at: http://www.energy.gov.za/files/media/explained/2009 Digest PDF version.pdf (last access: 10 July 2014), 2009. a
Staufer, J., Broquet, G., Bréon, F.-M., Puygrenier, V., Chevallier, F., Xueref-Rémy, I., Dieudonné, E., Lopez, M., Schmidt, M., Ramonet, M., Perrussel, O., Lac, C., Wu, L., and Ciais, P.: The first 1-year-long estimate of the Paris region fossil fuel CO2 emissions based on atmospheric inversion, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 14703–14726, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-14703-2016, 2016. a, b, c, d
Strong, C., Stwertka, C., Bowling, D. R., Stephens, B. B., and Ehleringer, J. R.: Urban carbon dioxide cycles within the Salt Lake Valley: A multiple-box model validated by observations, J. Geophys. Res., 116, D15307, https://doi.org/10.1029/2011JD015693, 2011. a
Tans, P. and Keeling, R.: Mauna Loa CO2 monthly mean data, NOAA/ESRL (https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/, last access: 13 June 2016) and Scripps Institution of Oceanography (http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/, last access: 13 June 2016), 2016. a
Turnbull, J. C., Karion, A., Fischer, M. L., Faloona, I., Guilderson, T., Lehman, S. J., Miller, B. R., Miller, J. B., Montzka, S., Sherwood, T., Saripalli, S., Sweeney, C., and Tans, P. P.: Assessment of fossil fuel carbon dioxide and other anthropogenic trace gas emissions from airborne measurements over Sacramento, California in spring 2009, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 11, 705–721, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-11-705-2011, 2011.
a
Turnbull, J. C., Sweeney, C., Karion, A., Newberger, T., Lehman, S. J., Tans, P. P., Davis, K. J., Lauvaux, T., Miles, N. L., Richardson, S. J., Cambaliza, M. O., Shepson, P. B., Gurney, K., and Patarasuk, P.: Toward quantification and source sector identification of fossil fuel CO2 emissions from an urban area: Results from the INFLUX experiment, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 120, 292–312, https://doi.org/10.1002/2014JD022555, 2015. a
Uliasz, M.: Lagrangian particle modeling in mesoscale applications, in: Environmental Modelling II, Computational Mechanics Publications, Southampton, UK, 71–102, 1994. a
UN-Habitat: Cities and climate change: global report on human settlements 2011, Earthscan, United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), 2011. a
Wang, Y, P., Kowalczyk, E., Leuning, R., Abramowitz, G., Raupach, M. R., Pak, B., van Gorsel, E., and Luhar, A.: Diagnosing errors in a land surface model (CABLE) in the time
and frequency domains, J. Geophys. Res., 116, G01034, https://doi.org/10.1029/2010JG001385, 2011. a
Wu, L., Broquet, G., Ciais, P., Bellassen, V., Vogel, F., Chevallier, F., Xueref-Remy, I., and Wang, Y.: What would dense atmospheric observation networks bring to the quantification of city CO2 emissions?, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 7743–7771, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-7743-2016, 2016. a, b
Ziehn, T., Nickless, A., Rayner, P. J., Law, R. M., Roff, G., and Fraser, P.: Greenhouse gas network design using backward Lagrangian particle dispersion modelling – Part 1: Methodology and Australian test case, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 14, 9363–9378, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-9363-2014, 2014. a, b, c
Short summary
Different frameworks for an atmospheric inversion study over Cape Town, South Africa, are considered. We focused particularly on how sensitive the estimates of CO2 fluxes were to changes in the way the uncertainty in these estimates was specified and the impact different prior information had on the final flux estimates. We used atmospheric measurements from two new sites located near Cape Town: Robben Island and Hangklip lighthouses, which were specifically deployed for this inversion study.
Different frameworks for an atmospheric inversion study over Cape Town, South Africa, are...
Altmetrics
Final-revised paper
Preprint