| 1. |
- Ramonet, M., et al.
(författare)
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The fingerprint of the summer 2018 drought in Europe on ground-based atmospheric CO 2 measurements : Atmospheric CO 2 anomaly
- 2020
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Ingår i: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. - : The Royal Society. - 0962-8436 .- 1471-2970. ; 375:1810
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- During the summer of 2018, a widespread drought developed over Northern and Central Europe. The increase in temperature and the reduction of soil moisture have influenced carbon dioxide (CO 2) exchange between the atmosphere and terrestrial ecosystems in various ways, such as a reduction of photosynthesis, changes in ecosystem respiration, or allowing more frequent fires. In this study, we characterize the resulting perturbation of the atmospheric CO 2 seasonal cycles. 2018 has a good coverage of European regions affected by drought, allowing the investigation of how ecosystem flux anomalies impacted spatial CO 2 gradients between stations. This density of stations is unprecedented compared to previous drought events in 2003 and 2015, particularly thanks to the deployment of the Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS) network of atmospheric greenhouse gas monitoring stations in recent years. Seasonal CO 2 cycles from 48 European stations were available for 2017 and 2018. Earlier data were retrieved for comparison from international databases or national networks. Here, we show that the usual summer minimum in CO 2 due to the surface carbon uptake was reduced by 1.4 ppm in 2018 for the 10 stations located in the area most affected by the temperature anomaly, mostly in Northern Europe. Notwithstanding, the CO 2 transition phases before and after July were slower in 2018 compared to 2017, suggesting an extension of the growing season, with either continued CO 2 uptake by photosynthesis and/or a reduction in respiration driven by the depletion of substrate for respiration inherited from the previous months due to the drought. For stations with sufficiently long time series, the CO 2 anomaly observed in 2018 was compared to previous European droughts in 2003 and 2015. Considering the areas most affected by the temperature anomalies, we found a higher CO 2 anomaly in 2003 (+3 ppm averaged over 4 sites), and a smaller anomaly in 2015 (+1 ppm averaged over 11 sites) compared to 2018. This article is part of the theme issue 'Impacts of the 2018 severe drought and heatwave in Europe: from site to continental scale'.
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| 2. |
- Peters, W., et al.
(författare)
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Seven years of recent European net terrestrial carbon dioxide exchange constrained by atmospheric observations
- 2010
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Ingår i: Global Change Biology. - : Wiley. - 1354-1013 .- 1365-2486. ; 16:4, s. 1317-1337
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present an estimate of net ecosystem exchange (NEE) of CO2 in Europe for the years 2001-2007. It is derived with a data assimilation that uses a large set of atmospheric CO2 mole fraction observations (similar to 70 000) to guide relatively simple descriptions of terrestrial and oceanic net exchange, while fossil fuel and fire emissions are prescribed. Weekly terrestrial sources and sinks are optimized (i.e., a flux inversion) for a set of 18 large ecosystems across Europe in which prescribed climate, weather, and surface characteristics introduce finer scale gradients. We find that the terrestrial biosphere in Europe absorbed a net average of -165 Tg C yr-1 over the period considered. This uptake is predominantly in non-EU countries, and is found in the northern coniferous (-94 Tg C yr-1) and mixed forests (-30 Tg C yr-1) as well as the forest/field complexes of eastern Europe (-85 Tg C yr-1). An optimistic uncertainty estimate derived using three biosphere models suggests the uptake to be in a range of -122 to -258 Tg C yr-1, while a more conservative estimate derived from the a-posteriori covariance estimates is -165 +/- 437 Tg C yr-1. Note, however, that uncertainties are hard to estimate given the nature of the system and are likely to be significantly larger than this. Interannual variability in NEE includes a reduction in uptake due to the 2003 drought followed by 3 years of more than average uptake. The largest anomaly of NEE occurred in 2005 concurrent with increased seasonal cycles of observed CO2. We speculate these changes to result from the strong negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation in 2005 that lead to favorable summer growth conditions, and altered horizontal and vertical mixing in the atmosphere. All our results are available through http://www.carbontracker.eu.
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| 3. |
- Saunois, M., et al.
(författare)
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The global methane budget 2000–2012
- 2016
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Ingår i: Earth System Science Data. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1866-3508 .- 1866-3516. ; 8:2, s. 697-751
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The global methane (CH4) budget is becoming an increasingly important component for managing realistic pathways to mitigate climate change. This relevance, due to a shorter atmospheric lifetime and a stronger warming potential than carbon dioxide, is challenged by the still unexplained changes of atmospheric CH4 over the past decade. Emissions and concentrations of CH4 are continuing to increase, making CH4 the second most important human-induced greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide. Two major difficulties in reducing uncertainties come from the large variety of diffusive CH4 sources that overlap geographically, and from the destruction of CH4 by the very short-lived hydroxyl radical (OH). To address these difficulties, we have established a consortium of multi-disciplinary scientists under the umbrella of the Global Carbon Project to synthesize and stimulate research on the methane cycle, and producing regular (∼ biennial) updates of the global methane budget. This consortium includes atmospheric physicists and chemists, biogeochemists of surface and marine emissions, and socio-economists who study anthropogenic emissions. Following Kirschke et al. (2013), we propose here the first version of a living review paper that integrates results of top-down studies (exploiting atmospheric observations within an atmospheric inverse-modelling framework) and bottom-up models, inventories and data-driven approaches (including process-based models for estimating land surface emissions and atmospheric chemistry, and inventories for anthropogenic emissions, data-driven extrapolations). For the 2003–2012 decade, global methane emissions are estimated by top-down inversions at 558 Tg CH4 yr−1, range 540–568. About 60 % of global emissions are anthropogenic (range 50–65 %). Since 2010, the bottom-up global emission inventories have been closer to methane emissions in the most carbon-intensive Representative Concentrations Pathway (RCP8.5) and higher than all other RCP scenarios. Bottom-up approaches suggest larger global emissions (736 Tg CH4 yr−1, range 596–884) mostly because of larger natural emissions from individual sources such as inland waters, natural wetlands and geological sources. Considering the atmospheric constraints on the top-down budget, it is likely that some of the individual emissions reported by the bottom-up approaches are overestimated, leading to too large global emissions. Latitudinal data from top-down emissions indicate a predominance of tropical emissions (∼ 64 % of the global budget, < 30° N) as compared to mid (∼ 32 %, 30–60° N) and high northern latitudes (∼ 4 %, 60–90° N). Top-down inversions consistently infer lower emissions in China (∼ 58 Tg CH4 yr−1, range 51–72, −14 %) and higher emissions in Africa (86 Tg CH4 yr−1, range 73–108, +19 %) than bottom-up values used as prior estimates. Overall, uncertainties for anthropogenic emissions appear smaller than those from natural sources, and the uncertainties on source categories appear larger for top-down inversions than for bottom-up inventories and models. The most important source of uncertainty on the methane budget is attributable to emissions from wetland and other inland waters. We show that the wetland extent could contribute 30–40 % on the estimated range for wetland emissions. Other priorities for improving the methane budget include the following: (i) the development of process-based models for inland-water emissions, (ii) the intensification of methane observations at local scale (flux measurements) to constrain bottom-up land surface models, and at regional scale (surface networks and satellites) to constrain top-down inversions, (iii) improvements in the estimation of atmospheric loss by OH, and (iv) improvements of the transport models integrated in top-down inversions. The data presented here can be downloaded from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (http://doi.org/10.3334/CDIAC/GLOBAL_METHANE_BUDGET_2016_V1.1) and the Global Carbon Project.
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| 4. |
- Brenninkmeijer, C. A. M., et al.
(författare)
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Civil Aircraft for the regular investigation of the atmosphere based on an instrumented container: The new CARIBIC system
- 2007
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Ingår i: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. - 1680-7324. ; 7:18, s. 4953-4976
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- An airfreight container with automated instruments for measurement of atmospheric gases and trace compounds was operated on a monthly basis onboard a Boeing 767-300 ER of LTU International Airways during long-distance flights from 1997 to 2002 (CARIBIC, Civil Aircraft for Regular Investigation of the Atmosphere Based on an Instrument Container, http://www.caribic-atmospheric.com). Subsequently a more advanced system has been developed, using a larger capacity container with additional equipment and an improved inlet system. CARIBIC phase #2 was implemented on a new long-range aircraft type Airbus A340-600 of the Lufthansa German Airlines (Star Alliance) in December 2004, creating a powerful flying observatory. The instrument package comprises detectors for the measurement of O-3, total and gaseous H2O, NO and NOy, CO, CO2, O-2, Hg, and number concentrations of sub-micrometer particles (>4 nm, >12 nm, and >18 nm diameter). Furthermore, an optical particle counter (OPC) and a proton transfer mass spectrometer (PTR-MS) are incorporated. Aerosol samples are collected for analysis of elemental composition and particle morphology after flight. Air samples are taken in glass containers for laboratory analyses of hydrocarbons, halocarbons and greenhouse gases (including isotopic composition of CO2) in several laboratories. Absorption tubes collect oxygenated volatile organic compounds. Three differential optical absorption spectrometers (DOAS) with their telescopes mounted in the inlet system measure atmospheric trace gases such as BrO, HONO, and NO2. A video camera mounted in the inlet provides information about clouds along the flight track. The flying observatory, its equipment and examples of measurement results are reported.
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| 5. |
- Saunois, M., et al.
(författare)
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Variability and quasi-decadal changes in the methane budget over the period 2000–2012
- 2017
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Ingår i: Atmospheric Chemistry And Physics. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1680-7316 .- 1680-7324. ; 17:18, s. 11135-11161
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Following the recent Global Carbon Project (GCP) synthesis of the decadal methane (CH4) budget over 2000–2012 (Saunois et al., 2016), we analyse here the same dataset with a focus on quasi-decadal and inter-annual variability in CH4 emissions. The GCP dataset integrates results from top-down studies (exploiting atmospheric observations within an atmospheric inverse-modelling framework) and bottom-up models (including process-based models for estimating land surface emissions and atmospheric chemistry), inventories of anthropogenic emissions, and data-driven approaches. The annual global methane emissions from top-down studies, which by construction match the observed methane growth rate within their uncertainties, all show an increase in total methane emissions over the period 2000–2012, but this increase is not linear over the 13 years. Despite differences between individual studies, the mean emission anomaly of the top-down ensemble shows no significant trend in total methane emissions over the period 2000–2006, during the plateau of atmospheric methane mole fractions, and also over the period 2008–2012, during the renewed atmospheric methane increase. However, the top-down ensemble mean produces an emission shift between 2006 and 2008, leading to 22 [16–32] Tg CH4 yr−1 higher methane emissions over the period 2008–2012 compared to 2002–2006. This emission increase mostly originated from the tropics, with a smaller contribution from mid-latitudes and no significant change from boreal regions. The regional contributions remain uncertain in top-down studies. Tropical South America and South and East Asia seem to contribute the most to the emission increase in the tropics. However, these two regions have only limited atmospheric measurements and remain therefore poorly constrained. The sectorial partitioning of this emission increase between the periods 2002–2006 and 2008–2012 differs from one atmospheric inversion study to another. However, all top-down studies suggest smaller changes in fossil fuel emissions (from oil, gas, and coal industries) compared to the mean of the bottom-up inventories included in this study. This difference is partly driven by a smaller emission change in China from the top-down studies compared to the estimate in the Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGARv4.2) inventory, which should be revised to smaller values in a near future. We apply isotopic signatures to the emission changes estimated for individual studies based on five emission sectors and find that for six individual top-down studies (out of eight) the average isotopic signature of the emission changes is not consistent with the observed change in atmospheric 13CH4. However, the partitioning in emission change derived from the ensemble mean is consistent with this isotopic constraint. At the global scale, the top-down ensemble mean suggests that the dominant contribution to the resumed atmospheric CH4 growth after 2006 comes from microbial sources (more from agriculture and waste sectors than from natural wetlands), with an uncertain but smaller contribution from fossil CH4 emissions. In addition, a decrease in biomass burning emissions (in agreement with the biomass burning emission databases) makes the balance of sources consistent with atmospheric 13CH4 observations. In most of the top-down studies included here, OH concentrations are considered constant over the years (seasonal variations but without any inter-annual variability). As a result, the methane loss (in particular through OH oxidation) varies mainly through the change in methane concentrations and not its oxidants. For these reasons, changes in the methane loss could not be properly investigated in this study, although it may play a significant role in the recent atmospheric methane changes as briefly discussed at the end of the paper.
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| 6. |
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| 7. |
- Thompson, R. L., et al.
(författare)
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Changes in net ecosystem exchange over Europe during the 2018 drought based on atmospheric observations
- 2020
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Ingår i: Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences. - : The Royal Society. - 1471-2970. ; 375:1810
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The 2018 drought was one of the worst European droughts of the twenty-first century in terms of its severity, extent and duration. The effects of the drought could be seen in a reduction in harvest yields in parts of Europe, as well as an unprecedented browning of vegetation in summer. Here, we quantify the effect of the drought on net ecosystem exchange (NEE) using five independent regional atmospheric inversion frameworks. Using a network of atmospheric CO2 mole fraction observations, we estimate NEE with at least monthly and 0.5° × 0.5° resolution for 2009-2018. We find that the annual NEE in 2018 was likely more positive (less CO2 uptake) in the temperate region of Europe by 0.09 ± 0.06 Pg C yr-1 (mean ± s.d.) compared to the mean of the last 10 years of -0.08 ± 0.17 Pg C yr-1, making the region close to carbon neutral in 2018. Similarly, we find a positive annual NEE anomaly for the northern region of Europe of 0.02 ± 0.02 Pg C yr-1 compared the 10-year mean of -0.04 ± 0.05 Pg C yr-1. In both regions, this was largely owing to a reduction in the summer CO2 uptake. The positive NEE anomalies coincided spatially and temporally with negative anomalies in soil water. These anomalies were exceptional for the 10-year period of our study. This article is part of the theme issue 'Impacts of the 2018 severe drought and heatwave in Europe: from site to continental scale'.
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| 8. |
- Rose, C., et al.
(författare)
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Frequent nucleation events at the high altitude station of Chacaltaya (5240 m a.s.l.), Bolivia
- 2015
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Ingår i: Atmospheric Environment. - : Elsevier BV. - 1352-2310 .- 1873-2844. ; 102, s. 18-29
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- While nucleation may represent one of the major processes responsible for the total aerosol number burden in the atmosphere, and especially at high altitude, new particle formation (NPF) events occurring in the upper part of the troposphere are poorly documented in the literature, particularly in the southern hemisphere. NPF events were detected and analyzed at the highest measurement site in the world, Chacaltaya (5240 m a.s.l.), Bolivia between January 1 and December 31 2012, using a Neutral Aerosol and Ion Spectrometer (NAIS) that detects clusters down to 0.4 nm. NPF frequency at Chacaltaya is one of the highest reported so far (63.9%) and shows a clear seasonal dependency with maximum up to 100% during the dry season. This high seasonality of the NPF events frequency was found to be likely linked to the presence of clouds in the vicinity of the station during the wet season. Multiple NPF events are seen on almost 50% of event days and can reach up to 6 events per day, increasing the potential of nucleation to be the major contributor to the particle number concentrations in the upper troposphere. Ion-induced nucleation (IIN) was 14.8% on average, which is higher than the IIN fractions reported for boundary layer stations. The median formation rate of 2 nm particles computed for first position events is increased during the dry season (1.90 cm(-3) s(-1)) compared to the wet season (1.02 cm(-3) s(-1)), showing that events are more intense, on top of being more frequent during the dry season. On the contrary, particle growth rates (GRs) are on average enhanced during the wet season, which could be explained by higher amount of biogenic volatile organic compounds transported from the Amazon rainforest. The NPF events frequency is clearly enhanced when air masses originate from the oceanic sector, with a frequency of occurrence close to 1. However, based on the particle GRs, we calculate that particles most likely nucleate after the oceanic air masses reach the land and are presumably not originating from the marine free troposphere. The high frequency of NPF events, the occurrence of multiple events per day, and the relatively high formation rates observed at Chacaltaya imply that nucleation and growth are likely to be the major mechanism feeding the upper atmosphere with aerosol particles in this part of the continent.
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| 9. |
- Saunois, Marielle, et al.
(författare)
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The Global Methane Budget 2000–2017
- 2020
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Ingår i: Earth System Science Data. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1866-3516 .- 1866-3508. ; 12:3, s. 1561-1623
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Understanding and quantifying the global methane (CH4) budget is important for assessing realistic pathways to mitigate climate change. Atmospheric emissions and concentrations of CH4 continue to increase, making CH4 the second most important human-influenced greenhouse gas in terms of climate forcing, after carbon dioxide (CO2). The relative importance of CH4 compared to CO2 depends on its shorter atmospheric lifetime, stronger warming potential, and variations in atmospheric growth rate over the past decade, the causes of which are still debated. Two major challenges in reducing uncertainties in the atmospheric growth rate arise from the variety of geographically overlapping CH4 sources and from the destruction of CH4 by short-lived hydroxyl radicals (OH). To address these challenges, we have established a consortium of multidisciplinary scientists under the umbrella of the Global Carbon Project to synthesize and stimulate new research aimed at improving and regularly updating the global methane budget. Following Saunois et al. (2016), we present here the second version of the living review paper dedicated to the decadal methane budget, integrating results of top-down studies (atmospheric observations within an atmospheric inverse-modelling framework) and bottom-up estimates (including process-based models for estimating land surface emissions and atmospheric chemistry, inventories of anthropogenic emissions, and data-driven extrapolations).For the 2008–2017 decade, global methane emissions are estimated by atmospheric inversions (a top-down approach) to be 576 Tg CH4 yr−1 (range 550–594, corresponding to the minimum and maximum estimates of the model ensemble). Of this total, 359 Tg CH4 yr−1 or ∼ 60 % is attributed to anthropogenic sources, that is emissions caused by direct human activity (i.e. anthropogenic emissions; range 336–376 Tg CH4 yr−1 or 50 %–65 %). The mean annual total emission for the new decade (2008–2017) is 29 Tg CH4 yr−1 larger than our estimate for the previous decade (2000–2009), and 24 Tg CH4 yr−1 larger than the one reported in the previous budget for 2003–2012 (Saunois et al., 2016). Since 2012, global CH4 emissions have been tracking the warmest scenarios assessed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Bottom-up methods suggest almost 30 % larger global emissions (737 Tg CH4 yr−1, range 594–881) than top-down inversion methods. Indeed, bottom-up estimates for natural sources such as natural wetlands, other inland water systems, and geological sources are higher than top-down estimates. The atmospheric constraints on the top-down budget suggest that at least some of these bottom-up emissions are overestimated. The latitudinal distribution of atmospheric observation-based emissions indicates a predominance of tropical emissions (∼ 65 % of the global budget, < 30∘ N) compared to mid-latitudes (∼ 30 %, 30–60∘ N) and high northern latitudes (∼ 4 %, 60–90∘ N). The most important source of uncertainty in the methane budget is attributable to natural emissions, especially those from wetlands and other inland waters.Some of our global source estimates are smaller than those in previously published budgets (Saunois et al., 2016; Kirschke et al., 2013). In particular wetland emissions are about 35 Tg CH4 yr−1 lower due to improved partition wetlands and other inland waters. Emissions from geological sources and wild animals are also found to be smaller by 7 Tg CH4 yr−1 by 8 Tg CH4 yr−1, respectively. However, the overall discrepancy between bottom-up and top-down estimates has been reduced by only 5 % compared to Saunois et al. (2016), due to a higher estimate of emissions from inland waters, highlighting the need for more detailed research on emissions factors. Priorities for improving the methane budget include (i) a global, high-resolution map of water-saturated soils and inundated areas emitting methane based on a robust classification of different types of emitting habitats; (ii) further development of process-based models for inland-water emissions; (iii) intensification of methane observations at local scales (e.g., FLUXNET-CH4 measurements) and urban-scale monitoring to constrain bottom-up land surface models, and at regional scales (surface networks and satellites) to constrain atmospheric inversions; (iv) improvements of transport models and the representation of photochemical sinks in top-down inversions; and (v) development of a 3D variational inversion system using isotopic and/or co-emitted species such as ethane to improve source partitioning.The data presented here can be downloaded from https://doi.org/10.18160/GCP-CH4-2019 (Saunois et al., 2020) and from the Global Carbon Project.
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| 10. |
- Agustí-Panareda, Anna, et al.
(författare)
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Modelling CO2 weather-why horizontal resolution matters
- 2019
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Ingår i: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1680-7316 .- 1680-7324. ; 19:11, s. 7347-7376
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Climate change mitigation efforts require information on the current greenhouse gas atmospheric concentrations and their sources and sinks. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the most abundant anthropogenic greenhouse gas. Its variability in the atmosphere is modulated by the synergy between weather and CO2 surface fluxes, often referred to as CO2 weather. It is interpreted with the help of global or regional numerical transport models, with horizontal resolutions ranging from a few hundreds of kilometres to a few kilometres. Changes in the model horizontal resolution affect not only atmospheric transport but also the representation of topography and surface CO2 fluxes. This paper assesses the impact of horizontal resolution on the simulated atmospheric CO2 variability with a numerical weather prediction model. The simulations are performed using the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) CO2 forecasting system at different resolutions from 9 to 80 km and are evaluated using in situ atmospheric surface measurements and atmospheric column-mean observations of CO2, as well as radiosonde and SYNOP observations of the winds. The results indicate that both diurnal and day-to-day variability of atmospheric CO2 are generally better represented at high resolution, as shown by a reduction in the errors in simulated wind and CO2. Mountain stations display the largest improvements at high resolution as they directly benefit from the more realistic orography. In addition, the CO2 spatial gradients are generally improved with increasing resolution for both stations near the surface and those observing the total column, as the overall inter-station error is also reduced in magnitude. However, close to emission hotspots, the high resolution can also lead to a deterioration of the simulation skill, highlighting uncertainties in the high-resolution fluxes that are more diffuse at lower resolutions. We conclude that increasing horizontal resolution matters for modelling CO2 weather because it has the potential to bring together improvements in the surface representation of both winds and CO2 fluxes, as well as an expected reduction in numerical errors of transport. Modelling applications like atmospheric inversion systems to estimate surface fluxes will only be able to benefit fully from upgrades in horizontal resolution if the topography, winds and prior flux distribution are also upgraded accordingly. It is clear from the results that an additional increase in resolution might reduce errors even further. However, the horizontal resolution sensitivity tests indicate that the change in the CO2 and wind modelling error with resolution is not linear, making it difficult to quantify the improvement beyond the tested resolutions. Finally, we show that the high-resolution simulations are useful for the assessment of the small-scale variability of CO2 which cannot be represented in coarser-resolution models. These representativeness errors need to be considered when assimilating in situ data and high-resolution satellite data such as Greenhouse gases Observing Satellite (GOSAT), Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2), the Chinese Carbon Dioxide Observation Satellite Mission (TanSat) and future missions such as the Geostationary Carbon Observatory (GeoCarb) and the Sentinel satellite constellation for CO2. For these reasons, the high-resolution CO2 simulations provided by the CAMS in real time can be useful to estimate such small-scale variability in real time, as well as providing boundary conditions for regional modelling studies and supporting field experiments.
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