Satellite remote sounding of mid‐tropospheric CO₂

Abstract

Human activity has increased the concentration of the earth's atmospheric carbon dioxide, which plays a direct role in contributing to global warming. Mid‐tropospheric CO2 retrieved by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder shows a substantial spatiotemporal variability that is supported by in situ aircraft measurements. The distribution of middle tropospheric CO2 is strongly influenced by surface sources and large‐scale circulations such as the mid‐latitude jet streams and by synoptic weather systems, most notably in the summer hemisphere. In addition, the effects of stratosphere‐troposphere exchange are observed during a final stratospheric warming event. The results provide the means to understand the sources and sinks and the lifting of CO2 from surface layers into the free troposphere and its subsequent transport around the globe. These processes are not adequately represented in three chemistry‐transport models that have been used to study carbon budgets.

Characterization of Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) CO<sub>2</sub> for carbon cycle science

“…3. In the Pacific, we also compare to the AIRS CO 2 dataset (Chahine et al, 2005(Chahine et al, , 2008, which monthly averages gridded by 2 • ×2.5 • , available from http://mirador.gsfc.nasa.gov/ (keyword AIRX3C2M). The retrieved parameter is a scaling factor applied to a CO 2 profile and has peak sensitivity at 300 hPa for mid-latitudes (Olsen, 2009 For TES CO 2 retrievals between 40 • S and 45 • N, we compare to surface station flask data from the NOAA GMD network (Conway et al, 2008), the GLOBALVIEW dataset (GLOBALVIEW-CO 2 , 2008), and CarbonTracker (Peters et al, 2007; http://carbontracker.noaa.gov).…”

“…We compare to the Chahine et al (2005Chahine et al ( , 2008) AIRS CO 2 product, which is gridded (2 • ×2.5 • ) monthly data with peak sensitivity at 300 hPa (Olsen, 2009). As seen in Table 3, the correlation between TES and AIRS ranges between 0.16 for Southern Hemisphere ocean (which has a weak seasonal cycle) to 0.53 for Northern Hemisphere ocean, with AIRS seasonal variability less than TES, as seen in Table 6 and Fig.…”

“…These include using different spectral regions, different optimization methodologies, coretrieving different species and direct assimilation of radiances. The different retrieval approaches have resulted in AIRS retrievals with estimated peak sensitivity ranging between 200 and 600 hPa (e.g., Chahine et al, 2005Chahine et al, , 2008Crevoisier et al, 2003;Engelen et al, 2004;Strow et al, 2008;Maddy et al, 2008). The AIRS data shown in this paper are taken from the AIRS standard product (Chahine et al, 2005(Chahine et al, , 2008.…”

“…The different retrieval approaches have resulted in AIRS retrievals with estimated peak sensitivity ranging between 200 and 600 hPa (e.g., Chahine et al, 2005Chahine et al, , 2008Crevoisier et al, 2003;Engelen et al, 2004;Strow et al, 2008;Maddy et al, 2008). The AIRS data shown in this paper are taken from the AIRS standard product (Chahine et al, 2005(Chahine et al, , 2008. IASI, onboard the European MetOp platform, was launched in October 2006 andCrevoisier et al (2009) have recently presented a tropical (20 • N-20 • S) ocean CO 2 product from IASI with peak sensitivity near 200 hPa.…”

Simulated retrievals for the remote sensing of CO<sub>2</sub>, CH<sub>4</sub>, CO, and H<sub>2</sub>O from geostationary orbit

“…2002 (Aumann et al, 2003;Chahine et al, 2005Chahine et al, , 2008Xiong et al, 2008). The Scanning Imaging Absorption Spectrometer for Atmospheric Cartography (SCIAMACHY) instrument was operational for measurements of atmospheric compositions from 2002 to 2012, with CO 2 , CH 4 , CO, and H 2 O as four of its target species (Buchwitz et al, 2004(Buchwitz et al, , 2007Schrijver et al, 2009;Schneising et al, 2011).…”