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CO 2 source inversions using satellite observations of the upper troposphere
Author(s) -
Park Bernard C.,
Prather Michael J.
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2001gl013604
Subject(s) - troposphere , environmental science , satellite , occultation , inversion (geology) , atmospheric sciences , climatology , meteorology , remote sensing , geology , physics , paleontology , structural basin , astronomy
Satellite observations of CO 2 abundance in the upper troposphere can provide a major constraint for deriving the net carbon fluxes from tropical landmasses that is unavailable from current surface observations. Such global CO 2 profiling with an uncertainty of about 1% (3 ppm) contains key longitudinal information needed to derive surface fluxes in a standard Bayesian inversion. Upper‐tropospheric data available from flight‐proven FTIR solar occultation measurements could provide comparable information to that from yet‐to‐be‐demonstrated column CO 2 observations, which have heretofore been the focus of carbon cycle studies. A strategy for improving CO 2 source inversions with either type of satellite data should focus on tropical observations and on careful evaluation of possible sampling biases affecting the observational uncertainties.