TY - UNPB
T1 - The 2015–2016 Carbon Cycle As Seen from OCO-2 and the Global In Situ Network
AU - Crowell, Sean
AU - Baker, David
AU - Schuh, Andrew
AU - Basu, Sourish
AU - Jacobson, Andrew R.
AU - Chevallier, Frederic
AU - Liu, Junjie
AU - Deng, Feng
AU - Feng, Liang
AU - Chatterjee, Abhishek
AU - Crisp, David
AU - Eldering, Annmarie
AU - Jones, Dylan B.
AU - Mckain, Kathryn
AU - Miller, John
AU - Nassar, Ray
AU - Oda, Tomohiro
AU - O'dell, Christopher
AU - Palmer, Paul I.
AU - Schimel, David
AU - Stephens, Britton
AU - Sweeney, Colm
PY - 2019/2/6
Y1 - 2019/2/6
N2 - The Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 has been on orbit since 2014, and its global coverage holds the potential to reveal new information about the carbon cycle through the use of top-down atmospheric inversion methods combined with column average CO2 retrievals. We employ a large ensemble of atmospheric inversions utilizing different transport models, data assimilation techniques and prior flux distributions in order to quantify the satellite-informed fluxes from OCO-2 Version 7r land observations and their uncertainties at continental scales. Additionally, we use in situ measurements to provide a baseline against which to compare the satellite-constrained results. We find that within ensemble spread, in situ observations and satellite retrievals constrain a similar global total carbon sink of 3.7 ± 0.5 PgC, and 1.5 ± 0.6 PgC per year for global land, for the 2015–2016 annual mean. This agreement breaks down on smaller regions, and we discuss the differences between the experiments. Of particular interest is the difference between the different assimilation constraints in the tropics, with the largest differences occurring in tropical Africa, which could be an indication of the global perturbation from the 2015–2016 El Niño. Evaluation of posterior concentrations using TCCON and aircraft observations gives some limited insight into the quality of the different assimilation constraints, but the lack of such data in the tropics inhibits our ability to make strong conclusions there.
AB - The Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 has been on orbit since 2014, and its global coverage holds the potential to reveal new information about the carbon cycle through the use of top-down atmospheric inversion methods combined with column average CO2 retrievals. We employ a large ensemble of atmospheric inversions utilizing different transport models, data assimilation techniques and prior flux distributions in order to quantify the satellite-informed fluxes from OCO-2 Version 7r land observations and their uncertainties at continental scales. Additionally, we use in situ measurements to provide a baseline against which to compare the satellite-constrained results. We find that within ensemble spread, in situ observations and satellite retrievals constrain a similar global total carbon sink of 3.7 ± 0.5 PgC, and 1.5 ± 0.6 PgC per year for global land, for the 2015–2016 annual mean. This agreement breaks down on smaller regions, and we discuss the differences between the experiments. Of particular interest is the difference between the different assimilation constraints in the tropics, with the largest differences occurring in tropical Africa, which could be an indication of the global perturbation from the 2015–2016 El Niño. Evaluation of posterior concentrations using TCCON and aircraft observations gives some limited insight into the quality of the different assimilation constraints, but the lack of such data in the tropics inhibits our ability to make strong conclusions there.
U2 - 10.5194/acp-2019-87
DO - 10.5194/acp-2019-87
M3 - Discussion paper
T3 - Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions
SP - 1
EP - 79
BT - The 2015–2016 Carbon Cycle As Seen from OCO-2 and the Global In Situ Network
ER -