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On the impact of transport model errors for the estimation of CO 2 surface fluxes from GOSAT observations
Author(s) -
Chevallier Frédéric,
Feng Liang,
Bösch Hartmut,
Palmer Paul I.,
Rayner Peter J.
Publication year - 2010
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 - 10.1029/2010gl044652
Subject(s) - greenhouse gas , inversion (geology) , environmental science , satellite , flux (metallurgy) , atmospheric sciences , remote sensing , meteorology , geology , materials science , physics , paleontology , oceanography , structural basin , astronomy , metallurgy
A series of observing system simulation experiments is presented in which column averaged dry air mole fractions of CO 2 (X CO2 ) from the Greenhouse gases Observing SATellite (GOSAT) are made consistent or not with the transport model embedded in a flux inversion system. The GOSAT observations improve the random errors of the surface carbon budget despite the inconsistency. However, we find biases in the inferred surface CO 2 budget of a few hundred MtC/a at the subcontinental scale, that are caused by differences of only a few tenths of a ppm between the simulations of the individual X CO2 soundings. The accuracy and precision of the inverted fluxes are little sensitive to an 8‐fold reduction in the data density. This issue is critical for any future satellite constellation to monitor X CO2 and should be pragmatically addressed by explicitly accounting for transport errors in flux inversion systems.