TY - JOUR
T1 - On the impact of transport model errors for the estimation of CO2 surface fluxes from GOSAT observations
AU - Chevallier, Frederic
AU - Feng, Liang
AU - Boesch, Hartmut
AU - Palmer, Paul I.
AU - Rayner, Peter J.
PY - 2010/11/3
Y1 - 2010/11/3
N2 - A series of observing system simulation experiments is presented in which column averaged dry air mole fractions of CO2 (X-CO2) from the Greenhouse gases Observing SATellite (GOSAT) are made consistent or not with the transport model embedded in a flux inversion system. The GOSAT observations improve the random errors of the surface carbon budget despite the inconsistency. However, we find biases in the inferred surface CO2 budget of a few hundred MtC/a at the subcontinental scale, that are caused by differences of only a few tenths of a ppm between the simulations of the individual X-CO2 soundings. The accuracy and precision of the inverted fluxes are little sensitive to an 8-fold reduction in the data density. This issue is critical for any future satellite constellation to monitor X-CO2 and should be pragmatically addressed by explicitly accounting for transport errors in flux inversion systems. Citation: Chevallier, F., L. Feng, H. Bosch, P. I. Palmer, and P. J. Rayner (2010), On the impact of transport model errors for the estimation of CO2 surface fluxes from GOSAT observations, Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, L21803, doi:10.1029/2010GL044652.
AB - A series of observing system simulation experiments is presented in which column averaged dry air mole fractions of CO2 (X-CO2) from the Greenhouse gases Observing SATellite (GOSAT) are made consistent or not with the transport model embedded in a flux inversion system. The GOSAT observations improve the random errors of the surface carbon budget despite the inconsistency. However, we find biases in the inferred surface CO2 budget of a few hundred MtC/a at the subcontinental scale, that are caused by differences of only a few tenths of a ppm between the simulations of the individual X-CO2 soundings. The accuracy and precision of the inverted fluxes are little sensitive to an 8-fold reduction in the data density. This issue is critical for any future satellite constellation to monitor X-CO2 and should be pragmatically addressed by explicitly accounting for transport errors in flux inversion systems. Citation: Chevallier, F., L. Feng, H. Bosch, P. I. Palmer, and P. J. Rayner (2010), On the impact of transport model errors for the estimation of CO2 surface fluxes from GOSAT observations, Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, L21803, doi:10.1029/2010GL044652.
U2 - 10.1029/2010GL044652
DO - 10.1029/2010GL044652
M3 - Article
SN - 0094-8276
VL - 37
SP - -
JO - Geophysical Research Letters
JF - Geophysical Research Letters
M1 - L21803
ER -