Towards robust regional estimates of CO2 sources and sinks using atmospheric transport models (original) (raw)

Nature volume 415, pages 626–630 (2002) Cite this article

Abstract

Information about regional carbon sources and sinks can be derived from variations in observed atmospheric CO2 concentrations via inverse modelling with atmospheric tracer transport models. A consensus has not yet been reached regarding the size and distribution of regional carbon fluxes obtained using this approach, partly owing to the use of several different atmospheric transport models1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9. Here we report estimates of surface–atmosphere CO2 fluxes from an intercomparison of atmospheric CO2 inversion models (the TransCom 3 project), which includes 16 transport models and model variants. We find an uptake of CO2 in the southern extratropical ocean less than that estimated from ocean measurements, a result that is not sensitive to transport models or methodological approaches. We also find a northern land carbon sink that is distributed relatively evenly among the continents of the Northern Hemisphere, but these results show some sensitivity to transport differences among models, especially in how they respond to seasonal terrestrial exchange of CO2. Overall, carbon fluxes integrated over latitudinal zones are strongly constrained by observations in the middle to high latitudes. Further significant constraints to our understanding of regional carbon fluxes will therefore require improvements in transport models and expansion of the CO2 observation network within the tropics.

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Figure 1: Mean estimated sources and uncertainties for two inversions.

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Figure 2: CO2concentrations input to, and as fitted by, the inversion.

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Figure 3: Mean sources and uncertainties for six aggregated regions and global land and ocean.

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Acknowledgements

We thank B. Stephens for comments and suggestions on earlier versions of the manuscript. This work was supported by the NSF, NOAA and the International Geosphere Biosphere Program/Global Analysis, Interpretation, and Modeling Project. S.F. and J.S. were supported by NOAA's Office of Global Programs for the Carbon Modeling Consortium.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, 80523, Colorado, USA
    Kevin Robert Gurney & A. Scott Denning
  2. CSIRO Atmospheric Research, PMB 1, Aspendale, 3195, Victoria, Australia
    Rachel M. Law & Peter J. Rayner
  3. National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, 80303, Colorado, USA
    David Baker
  4. Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement (LSCE), Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, F-91198, France
    Philippe Bousquet, Philippe Ciais & Philippe Peylin
  5. Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 326 Broadway R/CG1, Boulder, 80303, Colorado, USA
    Lori Bruhwiler & Ken Masarie
  6. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, 02141, Massachusetts, US
    Yu-Han Chen
  7. AOS Program, Princeton University, Sayre Hall, Forrestal Campus, PO Box CN710, Princeton, 08544-0710, New Jersey, USA
    Songmiao Fan & Jorge Sarmiento
  8. Center for Atmospheric Sciences, McCone Hall, University of California, Berkeley, 94720-4767, California, USA
    Inez Y. Fung & Jasmin John
  9. Max-Planck-Institut fur Biogeochemie, Jena, D-07701, Germany
    Manuel Gloor, Martin Heimann & Chiu-Wai Yuen
  10. Meteorological Service of Canada, Environment Canada, Toronto, M3H 5T4, Ontario, Canada
    Kaz Higuchi
  11. Atmospheric Environment Division, Observations Department, Quality Assurance Section, Japan Meteorological Agency, 1-3-4 Otemachi, Chiyoda-ku, 100-8122, Tokyo, Japan
    Takashi Maki
  12. Institute for Global Change Research, Frontier Research System for Global Change, Yokohama, 236-0001, Japan
    Shamil Maksyutov
  13. Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, 92697-3100, California, USA
    Michael Prather & Bernard C. Pak
  14. Divisions of Engineering and Applied Science and Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Mail Stop 100-23, Pasadena, 91125, California, USA
    James Randerson
  15. National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, 16-1 Onogawa Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-8569, Japan
    Shoichi Taguchi
  16. Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Palisades, 10964, New York, USA
    Taro Takahashi

Authors

  1. Kevin Robert Gurney
  2. Rachel M. Law
  3. A. Scott Denning
  4. Peter J. Rayner
  5. David Baker
  6. Philippe Bousquet
  7. Lori Bruhwiler
  8. Yu-Han Chen
  9. Philippe Ciais
  10. Songmiao Fan
  11. Inez Y. Fung
  12. Manuel Gloor
  13. Martin Heimann
  14. Kaz Higuchi
  15. Jasmin John
  16. Takashi Maki
  17. Shamil Maksyutov
  18. Ken Masarie
  19. Philippe Peylin
  20. Michael Prather
  21. Bernard C. Pak
  22. James Randerson
  23. Jorge Sarmiento
  24. Shoichi Taguchi
  25. Taro Takahashi
  26. Chiu-Wai Yuen

Corresponding author

Correspondence toA. Scott Denning.

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Gurney, K., Law, R., Denning, A. et al. Towards robust regional estimates of CO2 sources and sinks using atmospheric transport models.Nature 415, 626–630 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/415626a

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