What is the concentration footprint of a tall tower?

In-situ measurements of oxygen, carbon monoxide and greenhouse gases from Ochsenkopf tall tower in Germany

“…During this decade, two towers were also established in Europe, Hegyhatsal in Hungary for CO 2 (Haszpra et al, 2001) and Cabauw in the Netherlands for CO 2 and other trace gases (Vermeulen et al, 2006). From the Wisconsin tower, it has been shown that tall towers can have footprints extending over an area of approximately 10 6 km 2 (Gloor et al, 2001).…”

“…For these reasons, there has been a move to establish atmospheric measurements over the continents and in the Planetary Boundary Layer (PBL), that is, closer to the strongest anthropogenic emissions and biospheric sources and sinks (Bakwin et al, 1995(Bakwin et al, , 1998. To measure PBL concentrations, the sampling point needs to be above the surface layer (about 100 m) in order to minimise the influence of the very nearfield (Gloor et al, 2001), that is, the area within a radius of the order of 10 km. Furthermore, high frequency measurements are required for optimal signal to noise ratio and to resolve diurnal and synoptic variability (Law et al, 2002).…”

Estimation of black carbon emissions from Siberian fires using satellite observations of absorption and extinction optical depths

“…The geographic coordinates of the observatory are 60.8° N and 89.4° E. Due to the background character of its environment, ZOTTO is suitable for studying natural sources of aerosol and gases in the 15 boreal forest (Chi et al, 2013). The observatory includes a 300 m tall mast that enables probing the atmospheric composition within the planetary boundary layer and capturing the regional concentration signal (Gloor et al, 2001). …”

Assessing the regional surface influence through Backward Lagrangian Dispersion Models for aircraft CO<sub>2</sub> vertical profiles observations in NE Spain

“…However, global inversions do not provide much spatial resolution nor do they have the potential to increase the current understanding of the terrestrial processes at the regional scale responsible for the future control of fluxes (Canadell et al, 2000). The CO 2 concentration over continents shows large variability resulting from surface fluxes which vary both spatially across the landscape in close relation to vegetation types and conditions (Gerbig et al, 2003a;Sarrat et al, 2007a;Choi et al, 2008); and temporally due to signal reversal of biospheric fluxes between night (respiration) and day (photosynthesis) combined with strong daily mixing within the planetary boundary layer (Gloor et al, 2001;Lafont et al, 2002;Gerbig et al, 2008;Denning et al, 2008). In addition, CO 2 variability over continents is also linked to synoptic and mesoscale changes in meteorological conditions (Sidorov et al, 2002;Shashkov et al, 2007;Ahmadov et al, 2009).…”

“…The aim of this paper is to study the vertical, horizontal and temporal extent of the regional surface influence area (10 4 km 2 ) that would have an impact on the CO 2 measurements carried out in vertical profiles using the CAS, examined through the concept of the footprint area. The footprint concept around a measurement site has been widely used to quantify from where and to what extent fluxes within the surrounding areas influence trace gas observations (Gloor et al, 2001). It is therefore a representation of the sensitivity of mixing ratios at measurement locations to upstream fluxes at prior times ).…”