Global Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations Simulated by GEOS-Chem: Comparison with GOSAT, Carbon Tracker and Ground-Based Measurements

Accurate quantification of the distribution and variability of atmospheric CO2 is crucial for a better understanding of global carbon cycle characteristics and climate change. Model simulation and observations are only two ways to globally estimate CO2 concentrations and fluxes. However, large uncertainties still exist. Therefore, quantifying the differences between model and observations is rather helpful for reducing their uncertainties and further improving model estimations of global CO2 sources and sinks. In this paper, the GEOS-Chem model was selected to simulate CO2 concentration and then compared with the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite (GOSAT) observations, CarbonTracker (CT) and the Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON) measurements during 2009–2011 for quantitatively evaluating the uncertainties of CO2 simulation. The results revealed that the CO2 simulated from GEOS-Chem is in good agreement with other CO2 data sources, but some discrepancies exist including: (1) compared with GOSAT retrievals, modeled XCO2 from GEOS-Chem is somewhat overestimated, with 0.78 ppm on average; (2) compared with CT, the simulated XCO2 from GEOS-Chem is slightly underestimated at most regions, although their time series and correlation show pretty good consistency; (3) compared with the TCCON sites, modeled XCO2 is also underestimated within 1 ppm at most sites, except at Garmisch, Karlsruhe, Sodankyla and Ny-Alesund. Overall, the results demonstrate that the modeled XCO2 is underestimated on average, however, obviously overestimated XCO2 from GEOS-Chem were found at high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere in summer. These results are helpful for understanding the model uncertainties as well as to further improve the CO2 estimation.

[1]  P. Tans,et al.  Atmospheric carbon dioxide at Mauna Loa Observatory: 2. Analysis of the NOAA GMCC data, 1974–1985 , 1989 .

[2]  B. Connor,et al.  Intercomparison of remote sounding instruments , 1999 .

[3]  D. Jacob,et al.  Global modeling of tropospheric chemistry with assimilated meteorology : Model description and evaluation , 2001 .

[4]  A. Jacobson,et al.  A joint atmosphere‐ocean inversion for surface fluxes of carbon dioxide: 1. Methods and global‐scale fluxes , 2007 .

[5]  Shamil Maksyutov,et al.  TransCom 3 CO2 inversion intercomparison: 1. Annual mean control results and sensitivity to transport and prior flux information , 2003 .

[6]  James T. Randerson,et al.  Differences between surface and column atmospheric CO2 and implications for carbon cycle research , 2004 .

[7]  David G. Streets,et al.  Improved quantification of Chinese carbon fluxes using CO2/CO correlations in Asian outflow , 2004 .

[8]  R. Schnur,et al.  Climate-carbon cycle feedback analysis: Results from the C , 2006 .

[9]  Kevin R. Gurney,et al.  TransCom 3 inversion intercomparison: Impact of transport model errors on the interannual variability of regional CO2 fluxes, 1988–2003 , 2006 .

[10]  G. Toon,et al.  Carbon dioxide column abundances at the Wisconsin Tall Tower site , 2006 .

[11]  J. Randerson,et al.  An atmospheric perspective on North American carbon dioxide exchange: CarbonTracker , 2007, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[12]  Ilse Aben,et al.  Retrievals of atmospheric CO2 from simulated space-borne measurements of backscattered near-infrared sunlight: accounting for aerosol effects. , 2009, Applied optics.

[13]  Michael Buchwitz,et al.  A method for improved SCIAMACHY CO 2 retrieval in the presence of optically thin clouds , 2009 .

[14]  Tatsuya Yokota,et al.  Global Concentrations of CO2 and CH4 Retrieved from GOSAT: First Preliminary Results , 2009 .

[15]  Andrew J. Watson,et al.  Corrigendum to "Climatological mean and decadal change in surface ocean pCO2, and net sea-air CO2 flux over the global oceans" [Deep Sea Res. II 56 (2009) 554-577] , 2009 .

[16]  Andrew J. Watson,et al.  Corrigendum to Climatological mean and decadal change in surface ocean pCO2, and net sea―air CO2 flux over the global oceans , 2009 .

[17]  J. Randerson,et al.  Global fire emissions and the contribution of deforestation, savanna, forest, agricultural, and peat fires (1997-2009) , 2010 .

[18]  Liang Feng,et al.  Evaluating a 3-D transport model of atmospheric CO 2 using ground-based, aircraft, and space-borne data , 2010 .

[19]  Dylan B. A. Jones,et al.  Modeling global atmospheric CO 2 with improved emission inventories and CO 2 production from the oxidation of other carbon species , 2010 .

[20]  Tatsuya Yokota,et al.  Retrieval algorithm for CO 2 and CH 4 column abundances from short-wavelength infrared spectral observations by the Greenhouse gases observing satellite , 2010 .

[21]  D. Wunch,et al.  Total column CO 2 measurements at Darwin, Australia – site description and calibration against in situ aircraft profiles , 2010 .

[22]  James B. Abshire,et al.  Calibration of the Total Carbon Column Observing Network using aircraft profile data , 2010 .

[23]  Justus Notholt,et al.  Side by side measurements of CO2 by ground-based Fourier transform spectrometry (FTS) , 2010 .

[24]  Tatsuya Yokota,et al.  Preliminary validation of column-averaged volume mixing ratios of carbon dioxide and methane retrieved from GOSAT short-wavelength infrared spectra , 2010 .

[25]  Liang Feng,et al.  On the impact of transport model errors for the estimation of CO2 surface fluxes from GOSAT observations , 2010 .

[26]  Justus Notholt,et al.  The Total Carbon Column Observing Network , 2011, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences.

[27]  Shamil Maksyutov,et al.  The seasonal cycle amplitude of total column CO2: Factors behind the model‐observation mismatch , 2011 .

[28]  G. Marland,et al.  Monthly, global emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel consumption , 2011 .

[29]  Justus Notholt,et al.  Calibration of TCCON column-averaged CO2: the first aircraft campaign over European TCCON sites , 2011 .

[30]  J. Notholt,et al.  Automated ground-based remote sensing measurements of greenhouse gases at the Białystok site in comparison with collocated in situ measurements and model data , 2011 .

[31]  Rebecca Castano,et al.  The ACOS CO 2 retrieval algorithm – Part 1: Description and validation against synthetic observations , 2011 .

[32]  Technical Note: Latitude-time variations of atmospheric column-average dry air mole fractions of CO 2 , CH 4 and N 2 O , 2012 .

[33]  P. Clark,et al.  Global warming preceded by increasing carbon dioxide concentrations during the last deglaciation , 2012, Nature.

[34]  Hartmut Boesch,et al.  Atmospheric carbon dioxide retrieved from the Greenhouse gases Observing SATellite (GOSAT): Comparison with ground‐based TCCON observations and GEOS‐Chem model calculations , 2012 .

[35]  Rebecca Castano,et al.  The ACOS CO 2 retrieval algorithm – Part II: Global X CO 2 data characterization , 2012 .

[36]  Justus Notholt,et al.  Simulations of column-averaged CO 2 and CH 4 using the NIES TM with a hybrid sigma-isentropic (σ-θ) vertical coordinate , 2012 .

[37]  Dorit Hammerling,et al.  Global CO2 distributions over land from the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite (GOSAT) , 2012 .

[38]  Yingying Jing,et al.  Investigation of the consistency of atmospheric CO2 retrievals from different space-based sensors: Intercomparison and spatiotemporal analysis , 2013 .

[39]  Jiulin Sun,et al.  Multi-Year Comparison of Carbon Dioxide from Satellite Data with Ground-Based FTS Measurements (2003-2011) , 2013, Remote. Sens..

[40]  Geoffrey C. Toon,et al.  Total Column Carbon Observing Network (TCCON) Site: Park Falls , 2014 .

[41]  Justus Notholt,et al.  Total Column Carbon Observing Network (TCCON) Site: Bremen , 2014 .

[42]  Justus Notholt,et al.  Total Column Carbon Observing Network (TCCON) Site: Orleans , 2014 .

[43]  Pauli Heikkinen,et al.  Total Column Carbon Observing Network (TCCON) Site: Sodankyla , 2014 .

[44]  Ralf Sussmann,et al.  Total Column Carbon Observing Network (TCCON) Site: Garmisch , 2014 .

[45]  Brian J. Connor,et al.  Total Column Carbon Observing Network (TCCON) Site: Darwin , 2014 .

[46]  D. Griffith,et al.  Solar Fourier transform infrared spectra (Wollongong) , 2014 .

[47]  Lei Liping,et al.  A comparison of atmospheric CO 2 concentration GOSAT-based observations and model simulations , 2014 .

[48]  Jiancheng Shi,et al.  Mapping Global Atmospheric CO2 Concentration at High Spatiotemporal Resolution , 2014, ATMOS 2014.

[49]  Frank Hase,et al.  Total Column Carbon Observing Network (TCCON) Site: Izana , 2014 .

[50]  David Crisp,et al.  The Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO-2): spectrometer performance evaluation using pre-launch direct sun measurements , 2014 .

[51]  John Robinson,et al.  Total Column Carbon Observing Network (TCCON) Site: Lauder 125HR , 2014 .

[52]  R. Sussmann,et al.  Contribution of oil and natural gas production to renewed increase in atmospheric methane (2007–2014): top–down estimate from ethane and methane column observations , 2015 .

[53]  Baozhang Chen,et al.  Comparing simulated atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration with GOSAT retrievals , 2015 .

[54]  John Robinson,et al.  Consistent evaluation of ACOS-GOSAT, BESD-SCIAMACHY, CarbonTracker, and MACC through comparisons to TCCON , 2015 .

[55]  J. Placeholder,et al.  Documentation for the 2014 TCCON Data Release , 2015 .

[56]  J. Placeholder.  A Priori Generation for the TCCON 2014 Data Release , 2015 .

[57]  Justus Notholt,et al.  Total Column Carbon Observing Network (TCCON) Collection: GGG2014 Site: Bialystok , 2015 .

[58]  Hartmut Boesch,et al.  Does GOSAT capture the true seasonal cycle of carbon dioxide , 2015 .

[59]  Pauli Heikkinen,et al.  Fourier transform spectrometer measurements of column CO 2 at Sodankylä, Finland , 2016 .

[60]  Jovan M. Tadić,et al.  On the effect of spatial variability and support on validation of remote sensing observations of CO 2 , 2016 .

[61]  Liangfu Chen,et al.  CMAQ simulation of atmospheric CO2 concentration in East Asia: Comparison with GOSAT observations and ground measurements , 2017 .

[62]  Na Zhao,et al.  A comparison of satellite observations with the XCO2 surface obtained by fusing TCCON measurements and GEOS-Chem model outputs. , 2017, The Science of the total environment.

[63]  Liang Feng,et al.  Angular dependence of aerosol information content in CAPI/TanSat observation over land: Effect of polarization and synergy with A-train satellites , 2017 .