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Abstract. We report continuous surface observations of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and methane (CH 4 ) from the Los Angeles (LA) Megacity Carbon Project during 2015. We devised a calibration strategy, methods for selection of background air masses, calculation of urban enhancements, and a detailed algorithm for estimating uncertainties in urbanscale CO 2 and CH 4 measurements. These methods are essential for understanding carbon fluxes from the LA megacity and other complex urban environments globally. We estimate background mole fractions entering LA using observations from four "extra-urban" sites including two "marine" sites located south of LA in La Jolla (LJO) and offshore on San Clemente Island (SCI), one "continental" site located in Victorville (VIC), in the high desert northeast of LA, and one "continental/mid-troposphere" site located on Mount Wilson (MWO) in the San Gabriel Mountains. We find that a local marine background can be established to within ∼ 1 ppm CO 2 and ∼ 10 ppb CH 4 using these local measurement sites. Overall, atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane levels are highly variable across Los Angeles. "Urban" and "suburban" sites show moderate to large CO 2 and CH 4 enhancements relative to a marine background estimate. The USC (University of Southern California) site near downtown LA exhibits median hourly enhancements of ∼ 20 ppm CO 2 and ∼ 150 ppb CH 4 during 2015 as well as ∼ 15 ppm CO 2 and ∼ 80 ppb CH 4 during mid-afternoon hours (12:00-16:00 LT, local time), which is the typical period of focus for flux inversions. The estimated measurement uncertainty is typically better than 0.1 ppm CO 2 and 1 ppb CH 4 based on the repeated standard gas measurements from the LA sites during the last 2 years, similar to Andrews et al. (2014). The largest component of the measurement uncertainty is duePublished by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union. 8314 K. R. Verhulst et al.: CO 2 and CH 4 measurements from the LA Megacity Carbon Project to the single-point calibration method; however, the uncertainty in the background mole fraction is much larger than the measurement uncertainty. The background uncertainty for the marine background estimate is ∼ 10 and ∼ 15 % of the median mid-afternoon enhancement near downtown LA for CO 2 and CH 4 , respectively. Overall, analytical and background uncertainties are small relative to the local CO 2 and CH 4 enhancements; however, our results suggest that reducing the uncertainty to less than 5 % of the median midafternoon enhancement will require detailed assessment of the impact of meteorology on background conditions.

Spaceborne measurements by NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) at the kilometer scale reveal distinct structures of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO) caused by known anthropogenic and natural point sources. OCO-2 transects across the Los Angeles megacity (USA) show that anthropogenic CO enhancements peak over the urban core and decrease through suburban areas to rural background values more than ~100 kilometers away, varying seasonally from ~4.4 to 6.1 parts per million. A transect passing directly downwind of the persistent isolated natural CO plume from Yasur volcano (Vanuatu) shows a narrow filament of enhanced CO values (~3.4 parts per million), consistent with a CO point source emitting 41.6 kilotons per day. These examples highlight the potential of the OCO-2 sensor, with its unprecedented resolution and sensitivity, to detect localized natural and anthropogenic CO sources.

Abstract. We estimate the amount of methane (CH 4 ) emitted by the largest dairies in the southern California region by combining measurements from four mobile solar-viewing ground-based spectrometers (EM27/SUN), in situ isotopic 13/12 CH 4 measurements from a CRDS analyzer (Picarro), and a high-resolution atmospheric transport simulation with a Weather Research and Forecasting model in large-eddy simulation mode (WRF-LES).The remote sensing spectrometers measure the total column-averaged dry-air mole fractions of CH 4 and CO 2 (X CH 4 and X CO 2 ) in the near infrared region, providing information on total emissions of the dairies at Chino. Differences measured between the four EM27/SUN ranged from 0.2 to 22 ppb (part per billion) and from 0.7 to 3 ppm (part per million) for X CH 4 and X CO 2 , respectively. To assess the fluxes of the dairies, these differential measurements are used in conjunction with the local atmospheric dynamics from wind measurements at two local airports and from the WRF-LES simulations at 111 m resolution.Our top-down CH 4 emissions derived using the Fourier transform spectrometers (FTS) observations of 1.4 to 4.8 ppt s −1 are in the low end of previous top-down estimates, consistent with reductions of the dairy farms and urbanization in the domain. However, the wide range of inferred fluxes points to the challenges posed by the heterogeneity of the sources and meteorology. Inverse modeling from WRF-LES is utilized to resolve the spatial distribution of CH 4 emissions in the domain. Both the model and the measurements indicate heterogeneous emissions, with contributions from anthropogenic and biogenic sources at Chino. A Bayesian inversion and a Monte Carlo approach are used to provide the CH 4 emissions of 2.2 to 3.5 ppt s −1 at Chino.