Regional Inverse Modeling in North and South America for the NASA Carbon Monitoring System
Science Team Members:
Arlyn Andrews, NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory
(Project Lead)
Lei Hu, NOAA / CIRES
Anna Michalak, Carnegie Institution for Science
John Miller, NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory
We propose a single follow-on proposal combining our projects North American Regional-Scale Flux Estimation and Observing System Design for the NASA Carbon Monitoring System (A. Andrews, PI) and In situ CO2-based evaluation of the Carbon Monitoring System flux product (J. Miller, PI) awarded under the 2012 CMS solicitation. Both projects leveraged available in situ measurements of CO2 and used high-resolution regional inverse modeling tools to quantify CO2 fluxes on regional scales and to investigate consistency among in situ and remote sensing datasets. Under the first project, we incorporated remote sensing measurements of CO2 into CarbonTracker-Lagrange, a NOAA-led effort to implement a regional inverse modeling framework for North America that uses footprints from a suite of Lagrangian transport models and a flexible inversion scheme with geostatistical and Bayesian capability. The inversions conducted for this project complement the CMS Flux Pilot estimates, because they are obtained for a regional domain and at higher resolution (1o), using different transport models (i.e. Lagrangian vs. Eulerian), augmented CO2 data sets (in situ and remote sensing), and using explicit matrix inversions rather than a data assimilation approach. Footprints (surface influence functions) for over 3 million ground-based, airborne, and satellite receptors were computed and are being made available to the research community. The second project used in situ atmospheric CO2 data, globally and with a South American focus, to evaluate products from the CMS Flux Pilot project. The South American component of the project focused on comparing CMS modeled CO2 concentrations with observed vertical profiles from aircraft above the Brazilian Amazon, a critically important yet under-sampled region where extensive cloud and aerosol contamination limit the usefulness of satellite data. Here we propose to refine and further develop the Lagrangian inversion framework and to complete the on-going flux inversions for North America and South America, leveraging datasets collected under the North American Carbon Program and through our partnerships with researchers in Brazil and taking into account uncertainties caused by satellite retrieval errors and model inadequacies, such as errors in simulated atmospheric transport and limitations of current inversion approaches. As detailed below, the proposed work will make heavy use of NASA assets, including TCCON and the upcoming OCO-2 XCO¬2 and chlorophyll fluorescence observations along with NASA remote sensing data products describing land cover and vegetation. We will also use and evaluate NASA model products (e.g., MERRA transport fields and the CMS Flux Product), thus strengthening links to NOAA’s CarbonTracker effort and supporting the development of an integrated Carbon Monitoring System. The proposed work will develop strategies for incorporating diverse CO2 observations and quantifying fluxes at scales relevant for Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) and quantifying uncertainties of CMS products.
Evaluation: CMS Global Flux project (Bowman-02, Ott-01), multiple transport models, GOSAT, surface and aircraft network
Intercomparison Efforts/Gaps: NOAA CarbonTracker
Uncertainty Estimates: Comparison of Footprints from multiple transport models, comparison of simulated CO2 between WRF-STILT and with CMS Global Flux project Mole fraction fields (Bowman-02, Ott-01) forced by same fluxes
Relevant Policies/Programs: US National Greenhouse Gas Inventory (NGHGI) baseline reporting to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Clean Air Act (CAA), U.S. Carbon Cycle Science Program (USCCSP), North American Carbon Program (NACP), North American Leaders' Declaration on Climate Change and Clean Energy (NALS)
Potential Users: EPA, USDA, NASA (GOSAT, ACOS, & OCO-2 *Chris O'Dell* science teams), and stakeholders of any emissions verification project, other atmospheric transport modelers and inverse modelers
Stakeholders:
Current Application Readiness Level: 5
Start Application Readiness Level: 1
Target Application Readiness Level: 9
Future Developments: - Collaborate with CMS flux teams.
Limitations: - Ground-based data used for optimization is sparse.; - Limited information on the fidelity of the atmospheric transport model.
Date When Product Available: Summer 2010 available now, 2007-2010 available before Nov meeting, 2015 available with 6 month delay from real time
Temporal Frequency: 3-hourly (will be aggregated to coarser resolution for reporting)
Input Data Products: TCCON, OCO-2 XCO2, chlorophyll fluorescence observations, and NASA remote sensing data products on land cover and vegetation, ACOS/GOSAT, NOAA surface and aircraft observations, Environment Canada surface CO2, Earth Networks CO2, Penn State / Ameriflux CO2, NCAR RACCOON CO2, IPEN (Brazil) in situ CO2
Evaluation: CMS Global Flux project (Bowman-02, Ott-01), multiple transport models, GOSAT, surface and aircraft network
Intercomparison Efforts/Gaps: NOAA CarbonTracker
Uncertainty Estimates: Formal grid-scale uncertainty estimates from inversion and across a suite of inversions using different priors, data-weighing and assumptions
Relevant Policies/Programs: US National Greenhouse Gas Inventory (NGHGI) baseline reporting to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Clean Air Act (CAA), U.S. Carbon Cycle Science Program (USCCSP), North American Carbon Program (NACP), North American Leaders' Declaration on Climate Change and Clean Energy (NALS)
Potential Users: EPA, USDA, NASA (GOSAT, ACOS, & OCO-2 *Chris O'Dell* science teams), and stakeholders of any emissions verification project
Stakeholders:
Current Application Readiness Level: 5
Start Application Readiness Level: 1
Target Application Readiness Level: 9
Future Developments: - Collaborate with CMS flux teams.
Limitations: - Ground-based data used for optimization is sparse.; - Limited information on the fidelity of the atmospheric transport model.
Date When Product Available: Summer 2010 available now. Summer 2012 and 2007-2010 available by 31 March 2015.
Temporal Frequency: 3-hourly (will be aggregated to coarser resolution for reporting)
Input Data Products: TCCON, OCO-2 XCO2, chlorophyll fluorescence observations, and NASA remote sensing data products on land cover and vegetation, ACOS/GOSAT, NOAA surface and aircraft observations, Environment Canada surface CO2, Earth Networks CO2, Penn State / Ameriflux CO2, NCAR RACCOON CO2, IPEN (Brazil) in situ CO2
Evaluation: CMS Global Flux project (Bowman-02, Ott-01), multiple transport models, GOSAT, surface and aircraft network
Intercomparison Efforts/Gaps: NOAA CarbonTracker
Uncertainty Estimates: Comparison between High-resolution in situ data-informed fluxes from Lagrangian inversion with CMS Global Flux project Mole Fraction fields
Relevant Policies/Programs: US National Greenhouse Gas Inventory (NGHGI) baseline reporting to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Clean Air Act (CAA), U.S. Carbon Cycle Science Program (USCCSP), North American Carbon Program (NACP), North American Leaders' Declaration on Climate Change and Clean Energy (NALS)
Potential Users: EPA, USDA, NASA (GOSAT, ACOS, & OCO-2 *Chris O'Dell* science teams), and stakeholders of any emissions verification project
Stakeholders:
Current Application Readiness Level: 3
Start Application Readiness Level: 1
Target Application Readiness Level: 9
Future Developments: - Collaborate with CMS flux teams.
Limitations: - Ground-based data used for optimization is sparse.; - Limited information on the fidelity of the atmospheric transport model.
Date When Product Available: Summer 2010 available now. Summer 2012 and 2007-2010 available by 31 March 2015.
Assigned Data Center: GES DISC
Metadata URL(s):
Data Server URL(s):
Archived Data Citation:
Bounding Coordinates:
West Longitude:
0.00000
East Longitude:
0.00000
North Latitude:
0.00000
South Latitude:
0.00000
Publications:
Hu, L., Andrews, A. E., Thoning, K. W., Sweeney, C., Miller, J. B., Michalak, A. M., Dlugokencky, E., Tans, P. P., Shiga, Y. P., Mountain, M., Nehrkorn, T., Montzka, S. A., McKain, K., Kofler, J., Trudeau, M., Michel, S. E., Biraud, S. C., Fischer, M. L., Worthy, D. E. J., Vaughn, B. H., White, J. W. C., Yadav, V., Basu, S., van der Velde, I. R. 2019. Enhanced North American carbon uptake associated with El Nino. Science Advances. 5(6). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aaw0076
Nehrkorn, T., Eluszkiewicz, J., Wofsy, S. C., Lin, J. C., Gerbig, C., Longo, M., Freitas, S. 2010. Coupled weather research and forecasting-stochastic time-inverted lagrangian transport (WRF-STILT) model. Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics. 107(1-2), 51-64. DOI: 10.1007/s00703-010-0068-x
Yadav, V., Michalak, A. M. 2013. Improving computational efficiency in large linear inverse problems: an example from carbon dioxide flux estimation. Geoscientific Model Development. 6(3), 583-590. DOI: 10.5194/gmd-6-583-2013
Gourdji, S. M., Hirsch, A. I., Mueller, K. L., Yadav, V., Andrews, A. E., Michalak, A. M. 2010. Regional-scale geostatistical inverse modeling of North American CO<sub>2</sub> fluxes: a synthetic data study. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. 10(13), 6151-6167. DOI: 10.5194/acp-10-6151-2010
Gourdji, S. M., Mueller, K. L., Yadav, V., Huntzinger, D. N., Andrews, A. E., Trudeau, M., Petron, G., Nehrkorn, T., Eluszkiewicz, J., Henderson, J., Wen, D., Lin, J., Fischer, M., Sweeney, C., Michalak, A. M. 2012. North American CO<sub>2</sub> exchange: inter-comparison of modeled estimates with results from a fine-scale atmospheric inversion. Biogeosciences. 9(1), 457-475. DOI: 10.5194/bg-9-457-2012
A Lagrangian Framework for North American Regional-Scale Flux Estimation and Observing System Design -- (Arlyn Elizabeth Andrews, Kirk Thoning, John Miller, Michael Trudeau, Pieter Tans, Marikate Mountain, Thomas Nehrkorn, Anna M Michalak, Vineet Yadav, Christopher O'Dell, Christopher Sloop, Roland Draxler, Ariel Stein, Doug Worthy) [abstract]