Was Australia a sink or source of CO<sub>2</sub> in 2015? Data assimilation using OCO-2 satellite measurements

Villalobos, Yohanna; Rayner, Peter J.; Silver, Jeremy D.; Thomas, Steven; Haverd, Vanessa; Knauer, Jürgen; Loh, Zoë M.; Deutscher, Nicholas M.; Griffith, David W. T.; Pollard, David F.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-17453-2021

Articles | Volume 21, issue 23

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-17453-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-17453-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 21, issue 23

Research article

|

01 Dec 2021

Research article |

| 01 Dec 2021

Was Australia a sink or source of CO₂ in 2015? Data assimilation using OCO-2 satellite measurements

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

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-17453-2021-supplement

Data sets

Data associated with the publication "Was Australia a sink or source of CO2 in 2015? Data assimilation using OCO-2 satellite measurements" Y. Villalobos, P. J. Rayner, J. D., Silver, S. Thomas, V. Haverd, J. Knauer, Z. M. Loh, N. M. Deutscher, D. W. T. Griffith, and D. F. Pollard https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5636113

Model code and software

Python 4-dimensional variational data assimilation tool S. Thomas https://github.com/steven-thomas/py4dvar

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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.