Comprehensive observations are more important than hypothesis testing

Operating atmospheric greenhouse gas (GHG) measurement networks in the Southern Hemisphere (SH) has some unique challenges and opportunities. The SH atmosphere is dominated by ocean-atmosphere interactions and the precision requirements for atmospheric measurements are more acute, which make calibration propagation strategies for regional networks in the SH a critical issue for comparing data from SH monitoring sites. SH sites offer opportunities to observe the integrated global atmosphere due to the potential large spatial representativeness, of well mixed clean marine boundary layer air, and remoteness from major emission source regions. With recent reports of accelerating global CO2 emissions combined with decreasing Southern Ocean CO2 uptake, accelerating global atmospheric CO2 growth rates, encompassing all regional source and sink contributions (particularly NH), should be observed in the SH. There is evidence that this may not be the case. This presentation will discuss SH regional GHG observation networks and, in particular, an Australian regional network, extending from Antarctica to the Australian tropics. Of particular relevance to the SH, is the capacity of the Southern Ocean for uptake of atmospheric CO2 and a specific Southern Ocean CO2 observation network (CSIRO, LSCE, and NIWA) was initiated in 2005 primarily for this application (Figure 1.). The inter-calibration strategy for maintaining such a high precision and long term, regional network will be discussed. Figure 1. Southern Ocean CO2 Network (“ ”=LoFlo; “ ”=Siemens3; “ ”=flask) References Francey, R.J., Trudinger, C.M., van der Schoot, M., Krummel, P.B., Langenfelds, R. L. (2010). Differences between trends in atmospheric CO2 and the reported trends in anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Tellus, 62B, 316328. The ICOS Atmospheric Thematic Center (ATC) Michel Ramonet 1 , P. Ciais 1 , L. Rivier 1 , T. Laurila 2 , A. Vermeulen 3 , M. Geever 4 , A. Jordan 5 , I. Levin 6 , O. Laurent 1 , M. Delmotte 1 , B. Wastine 1 , L. Hazan 1 , M. Schmidt 1 , J.Tarniewicz 1 , C.Vuillemin 1 , I. Pison 1 , G. Spain 4 , and J-D. Paris 1 1 Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement (LSCE), CEA/CNRS/UVSQ, Gif sur Yvette, France 2 Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI), Helsinki, Finland 3 Netherlands Energy Research Foundation (ECN), Petten, The Netherlands 4 National University of Ireland (EPA/NUI), Galway, Ireland 5 Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany 6 Institut für Umweltphysik (IUP), University of Heidelberg, Germany [email protected] ICOS is a new European Research Infrastructure (www.icos-infrastructure.eu) for understanding the greenhouse balance of the European continent and of adjacent regions. It will integrate terrestrial, atmospheric and oceanic observations at various sites into a single, coherent, highly precise dataset. The need of an Atmospheric Thematic Center operating at the European level in ICOS is justified by the distributed nature of this infrastructure, with stations located in Europe and other regions of the world. Thus, a central facility is needed to ensure that all the data are processed with the same algorithms and properly archived for the long term, that the atmospheric stations can receive permanent support for optimal operation during their lifetime, and that new sensors can be smoothly deployed in the network in the future. The ATC will also be responsible to link the ICOS atmospheric data collection programme with other central facilities, in the framework of European and international monitoring programmes. A demonstration experiment has been set up during the second semester of 2011 to demonstrate the feasibility of the ICOS infrastructure and its capability to manage properly a network of standardized instruments, with a centralized data processing performed in near real time. For that purpose, the Demo will rely on a small network made of four stations and central facilities (ATC/ETC and CAL). The presentation will detail the tasks of the ICOSATC, and the preliminary results obtained during the Demo Experiment. Figure 1. Schematic view of the main tasks and interactions of the ICOS Atmospheric Thematic Center. From RAMCES to ICOS-France: The “smooth” transition of the French network for atmospheric GHG monitoring M. Schmidt, M. Ramonet, M. Delmotte, B.Wastine, V. Kazan, C. Vuillemin, F. Truong, M.Lopez, B. Gal, I. Xueref, L.Hazan, J.Tarniewicz, I.Pison, L.Rivier, J-D. Paris, and P. Ciais Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement, Gif-sur-Yvette, France. [email protected] The LSCE (RAMCES) CO2 and Radon-222 monitoring program was initiated in 1980 at the Amsterdam Island observatory and then extended with observatories at Mace Head (Ireland), Saclay and Puy de Dome (France) until 2001. During the past decade, national and European projects allowed placing in-situ analyzers to the tall tower at Trainou (France) and stations like Ivittuut (Greenland). Today, all RAMCES in-situ stations perform CO2 measurements, and at three stations more specialized GC measurements of CH4, N2O, SF6, CO and H2 are carried out. In Overall, the RAMCES network is built up on 7 in-situ surface stations, 12 flask sampling sites and 1 airborne measurement site providing important data for global atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases budgeting. The increasing number of regional stations, with precise continuous atmospheric measurements will allow validating regional GHG emission and possible changes. Throughout the frame of ICOS-France the existing stations will be upgraded with more reliable and robust harmonized CRDS analysers to further strengthen our capacity observing atmospheric CO2 and other GHG. In cooperation with other research institutes we will extend our network to 9 stations in France and 10 in different part of the world, mostly the tropics.. Here, the strategy for upgrading RAMCES stations to the ICOS observing system will be presented as well as recent results on atmospheric GHG measurements in France. Figure 1: RAMCES/ICOS-France measurement station red: in-situ stations, yellow: flasks sampling sites). The Cooperative measurements stations, run mainly by other laboratories are marked in grey/green. Greenhouse Gas Monitoring and Intercomparison Activities of JMA Hiroshi Koide, Atsushi Takizawa, Daisuke Kuboike, Masamichi Nakamura, Yasushi Takatsuki and Yosuke Sawa 1 1-3-4 Ohtemachi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, 100-8122 Japan 2 1-1 Nagamine, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0052 Japan [email protected] The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) is monitoring greenhouse gases in multilateral approach. Surface concentrations of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and several other gases are observed at three GAW stations, Minamitorishima (Global station), Ryori and Yonagunijima (Regional stations). Ship-based CO2 observations in the air and surface seawater in the western North Pacific have been continued since 1980s along several sections including the meridional section of 137oE. JMA improved the onboard equipments on its research vessels in 2010 to start high-quality and high spatiotemporal resolution observations in Oceanic CO2 and related parameters over full ocean water column. JMA also started regular aircraft observation of the middletropospheric greenhouse gases in the western North Pacific region along the flight route between Tokyo and Minamitorishima once every month since February 2011. The analysis of the airplane observation is reported in the separated paper. These observations were distributed from World Data Centre for Greenhouse Gases (WDCGG). Among these efforts, the GAW regional station at Ryori located in the northeast part of mainland Japan, was damaged and recovered from the Great East Japan Earthquake which hit Japan on March 11, 2011. In order to ensure traceability to GAW international standards and maintain the accuracy of the domestic and the regional gas observation, JMA standard references for CO2, CH4, carbon monoxide (CO), nitrous oxide (N2O) and ozone (O3) are regularly calibrated against WMO scale in the Central Calibration Laboratory (CCLs). JMA’s primary standard gases for CO2 were sent to the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) and calibrated every two years. Accumulated data observed by JMA have been recalculated with the update of the WMO scale using the relational database. Laboratories in Japan other than JMA use their own scale for measurements of greenhouse gases. Therefore, taking the opportunity of the WMO world trace gas intercomparison conducted during 2009 and 2010, the five gas cylinders which consist of WMO reference gases and JMA standard gases, were circulated among each laboratory in Japan. In this way, the laboratories could compare measurement data of their individual scale. In the framework of GAW programme, JMA serves as the GAW World Calibration Centre (WCC) for CH4 in Asia and the South-West Pacific region. The WCC conducts series of intercomparison experiments in the relevant area. Through 2010 and 2011 an intercomparison experiment of CH4 reference gases was conducted for the South-West Pacific region among CSIRO (Aspendale), NIWA (Wellington) and JMA (Tokyo). Consequently, reference gases are circulated for Asia region in 2011. The differences of the standards among intercomparison participants in the region historically decreased in progression. Constructing the Brazilian Greenhouse Gas Measurement network Luciana V. Gatti 1 , Alexandre Martinewski 1 , John B. Miller 2 , Emanuel Gloor 3 , Luana S. Basso 1 , Lucas G. Domingues 1 , Caio S. C. Correia 1 , V. F. Borges 1 , M. H. Santos 1 , H.R. Rocha 4 , Marcos Costa 5 , Ed Dlugokencky 2 , A. Crotwell 2 , Kirk W Thoning 2 , Pieter Tans 2 1 IPEN/CQMA/LQA (Nuclear and Energy Research Institute), Sao Paulo, SP, Brazil 2 NOAA/ESRL/GMD (Global Monitoring Division), Boulder, Colorado, US 3 University of Leeds, School of Geography, UK 4 IAG/USP Instituto Astronomico e Geofisico, Sao Paulo, Brazil 5 MCT Ministry of Science and Technology – Climate Global Change [email protected] or [email protected] In 2003 a very productive collaboration between IPEN/CQMA/LQA and NOAA/ESRL/GMD has started with the construction of a replica of GHG system analysis (MAGICC). Since then LQA/IPEN group had and pursued the idea to construct a Brazilian GHG measurement network following the GMD/ESRL/NOAA network design. In 2004 we started to with aircraft based vertical profile sampling at SAN (2.86S 54.95W); 2006 at ABP (12.76S 38.17W); in 2010 we added three more aircraft sites as part of the UK (NERC) funded AMAZONICA and the FAPESP funded projects at TAB (5.96S 70.06W), RBA (9.38S 67.62W) and ALF (8.80S 56.75W) and added 2 further coastal stations at NAT (5.50S 35.25W) and SAL (0.61S 47.37W). During 2010 we measured 80 profiles from 300m to 4400m height above sea level, measuring CO2, CH4, N2O, CO and SF6 (Figure 1 yellow aircrafts sites). In 2011 the Brazilian GHG monitoring network was approved inside a larger project of MCT the “System Observations on Climate Change”. The objective in GHG network consists of 15 aircraft sites. For 2012 the Brazilian government had approved U$ 1.83 million to finance the System Observations on Climate Change. Figure 1. 4 aircraft sites TAB, RBA, ALF, SAN and 2 coast sites SAL and NAT It will be showed all results from the profiles made at 2010 for CO2 and CH4 and the flux calculated by Column integration technique. Acknowledgment: NOAA, NERC, FAPESP, CNPq, CAPES, MCT, Brazilian Government. Setting up of continuous measurement stations for carbon dioxide and methane in India Nuggehalli K. Indira (1) , Michel Ramonet (2) , Bhuwan C. Bhatt (3) , Marc Delmotte (1) , Martina Schmidt (1) , Benoit Wastine (1) , Cyrille Vuillemin (1) , Thomas J. Conway (4) , Philippe Ciais (1) , P.S. Swathi (2) and Vinod K. Gaur (2) [email protected] (1) Centre for Mathematical Modelling and Computer Simulation (C-MMACS/CSIR), Bangalore 560 037, India (2) Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement (LSCE), CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, Gif sur Yvette, France (3) Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore 560 034, India (4) Earth System Research Laboratory, NOAA, Boulder, Colorado, USA Estimates of carbon sources and sinks are poorly known over Asia and the Indian Ocean, especially because of the sparseness of the spatial data. This activity is very recent to India and it is desirable to have as many stations set up as possible for greenhouse gas measurements. Only then finer spatial sampling of CO2 and other gases would allow inversion over finer regional scales. The rapidly expanding economies of Asia are showing a swift increase in CO2 emissions. This trend, which will likely to continue, will impact the atmospheric concentration distribution. High precision measurements of atmospheric CO2 are used to monitor the trend of this gas, as well as to identify the space time variability of sources and sinks. This is an ongoing activity on analysis and measurement of concentrations of Carbon dioxide, Methane and other trace gases over India. It is imperative to say that it is essential to have as many numbers of samplings as possible to arrive at this crucial aspect of green house effect producing gases.A continuous measurement station set up in 2005, the northern part of India in Ladakh region is taken as a clean background site for the country. Another station at Pondicherry has a new set up of continuous measurement of CO2 and CH4. Some initial analysis of the data from Pondicherry is shown here. Figure 1. Atmospheric CO2 record at the Hanle IAO observatory, India. Overview of 10 years of CO2 and O2 observations at Jungfraujoch, Switzerland I.T. van der Laan-Luijkx, S. van der Laan, C. Uglietti, M.F. Schibig and M. Leuenberger University of Bern, Physics Institute, Climate and Environmental Physics, Sidlerstrasse 5, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland [email protected] The High Altitude Research Station Jungfraujoch (JFJ), situated at 46°33 ́N, 7°59 ́E, is an important research site because of its unique location, its year-round accessibility, and an excellent infrastructure. The Sphinx laboratory is situated at an altitude of 3580 m a.s.l., between the peaks of the Jungfrau (4158 m a.s.l.) and the Mönch (4099 m a.s.l.). Because of its altitude, the station is mostly in the free troposphere and is quite insensitive for groundbased pollution sources. The sampled air is therefore representative for the atmospheric background mixing ratios of the European main land. The University of Bern monitors the atmospheric CO2 and O2 concentrations at JFJ by continuous measurements as well as by a flask sampling program. Air samples are collected since 2000 and the continuous observations have started in the end of 2004. The flasks are analysed in Bern for the concentrations of CO2 and O2 (δO2/N2) and the isotopes of CO2: δC and δO. At the conference we will present an extensive comparison of both the flask and the continuous CO2 and O2 records. References: Uglietti, C., Leuenberger, M., and Valentino, F. L.: Comparison between real time and flask measurements of atmospheric O2 and CO2 performed at the High Altitude Research Station Jungfraujoch, Switzerland, Sci. Total Environ., 391, 196–202, 2008. Uglietti, C., Leuenberger, M., and Brunner, D.: Large-scale European source and flow patterns retrieved from back-trajectory interpretations of CO2 at the high alpine research station Jungfraujoch, Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., 11, 813–857, 2011. Valentino, F. L., Leuenberger, M., Uglietti, C., and Sturm, P.: Measurements and trend analysis of O2, CO2 and δ13C of CO2 from the high altitude research station Junfgraujoch, Switzerland – a comparison with the observations from the remote site Puy de Dome, France, Sci. Total Environ., 391, 203–210, 2008. Modelling the influence of regional CO2 fluxes at Surface and Column Observing Sites Sara Mikaloff Fletcher 1 , V. Sherlock 1 , N. Deutscher 2,3 , G. Brailsford 1 , D. Griffith 3 , and B. Connor 4 , 1 National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research, Wellington, New Zealand 2 Institute for Environmental Physics, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany 3 University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia 4 BC Consulting, New Zealand [email protected] Traditionally, inverse and data assimilation modelling of atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases has relied primarily on flask samples at a network of fixed sites. Many recent modelling studies have begun to develop methodologies to incorporate newly available measurements from other platforms such as continuous analysers, satellite data, and oceanic ∆pCO2 measurements. One promising source of atmospheric CO2 data are the column average dry air mole fractions of CO2 inferred from ground-based remote sensing measurements acquired by the Total Column Carbon Observing Network (TCCON). However comparisons between modelled column CO2 values constrained by surface data and TCCON data reveal puzzling differences between the modelled and observed seasonal cycle of CO2 at southern hemisphere sites in New Zealand and Australia. Before these data can be used to constrain inverse models, we need to understand whether these discrepancies are due to biases in the model transport or biases in the flux estimates. We use a series of tagged tracer model simulations to investigate the processes driving seasonal and inter-annual variability in the surface and column CO2 measurements and evaluate how measurements at these sites might be used to constrain regional CO2 budgets. In these simulations, assimilated CO2 fluxes from CarbonTracker are broken down into eleven ocean and 12 land regions, and fluxes from each region are treated as independent tracers in a forward model simulation. Preliminary analysis suggests that these discrepancies are most likely due to biases in estimates of the regional fluxes, particularly biomass burning from Southern Hemisphere land regions. While the seasonal cycle of surface measurements at the Australian and New Zealand TCCON sites is largely determined by the seasonal cycle local and regional terrestrial fluxes, the seasonal cycle of the column data at these sites is sensitive to long range transport of fluxes from Africa, South America, South East Asia, and the Northern Hemisphere. This may be of particular interest to the international scientific community because, while terrestrial fluxes in Southern Hemisphere land regions are of first order importance to the global carbon cycle, few observing stations available to constrain these fluxes due in part to logistical problems associated with long-term tracer measurements in developing nations. Inverse modelling of global CO2 and CH4 sources and sinks using satellite measurements. S. Houweling, G. Monteil, S. Basu, A. Butz, S. Guerlet, D. Schepers, C. Frankenberg, I. Aben. 1 SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research, Utrecht, The Netherlands. 2 Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research Utrecht (IMAU), Utrecht, The Netherlands Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Leopoldshafen, Germany. 4 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA