Articles | Volume 24, issue 7
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-4231-2024
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-4231-2024
Research article
 | 
09 Apr 2024
Research article |  | 09 Apr 2024

Atmospheric oxygen as a tracer for fossil fuel carbon dioxide: a sensitivity study in the UK

Hannah Chawner, Eric Saboya, Karina E. Adcock, Tim Arnold, Yuri Artioli, Caroline Dylag, Grant L. Forster, Anita Ganesan, Heather Graven, Gennadi Lessin, Peter Levy, Ingrid T. Luijkx, Alistair Manning, Penelope A. Pickers, Chris Rennick, Christian Rödenbeck, and Matthew Rigby

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Cited articles

Adcock, K. and Pickers, P.: Continuous measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and oxygen (O2) at Heathfield Tower 2021–2022, NERC EDS Centre for Environmental Data Analysis [data set], https://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/bfc2483537a744dca8e3239278b6e522 (last access: 13 March 2024 ), 2022. a
Adcock, K. E., Pickers, P. A., Manning, A. C., Forster, G. L., Fleming, L. S., Barningham, T., Wilson, P. A., Kozlova, E. A., Hewitt, M., Etchells, A. J., and Macdonald, A. J.: 12 years of continuous atmospheric O2, CO2 and APO data from Weybourne Atmospheric Observatory in the United Kingdom, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 15, 5183–5206, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-5183-2023, 2023. a, b, c
Andrews, A. E., Kofler, J. D., Trudeau, M. E., Williams, J. C., Neff, D. H., Masarie, K. A., Chao, D. Y., Kitzis, D. R., Novelli, P. C., Zhao, C. L., Dlugokencky, E. J., Lang, P. M., Crotwell, M. J., Fischer, M. L., Parker, M. J., Lee, J. T., Baumann, D. D., Desai, A. R., Stanier, C. O., De Wekker, S. F. J., Wolfe, D. E., Munger, J. W., and Tans, P. P.: CO2, CO, and CH4 measurements from tall towers in the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory's Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network: instrumentation, uncertainty analysis, and recommendations for future high-accuracy greenhouse gas monitoring efforts, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 7, 647–687, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-7-647-2014, 2014. a, b
Barningham, T.: Detection and attribution of Carbon Cycle Processes from Atmospheric O2 and CO2 measurements at Halley Research Station, Antarctica and Weybourne Atmospheric Observatory, UK, PhD thesis, University of East Anglia, https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/68343 (last access: 13 March 2024), 2018. a
Battle, M., Fletcher, S. M., Bender, M., Keeling, R. F., Manning, A. C., Gruber, N., Tans, P. P., Hendricks, M. B., Ho, D. T., Simonds, C., Mika, R., and Paplawsky, B.: Atmospheric potential oxygen: New observations and their implications for some atmospheric and oceanic models, Global Biogeochem. Cy., 20, GB1010, https://doi.org/10.1029/2005GB002534, 2006. a
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Short summary
The quantity of atmospheric potential oxygen (APO), derived from coincident measurements of carbon dioxide (CO2) and oxygen (O2), has been proposed as a tracer for fossil fuel CO2 emissions. In this model sensitivity study, we examine the use of APO for this purpose in the UK and compare our model to observations. We find that our model simulations are most sensitive to uncertainties relating to ocean fluxes and boundary conditions.
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