How will future satellite missions inform our understanding of the processes controlling atmospheric carbon?
Abstract
Satellite observations of CO2 and CH4 are a critical constraint on the contemporary carbon budget, providing insights into carbon-climate coupling, and demonstrating the ability to observe human emissions under certain conditions. Despite these advances, gaps in coverage exist that limit the ability to estimate fluxes at regional and global scales, and small but spatially coherent systematic errors in passive satellite data continue to pose a challenge for many scientific applications. Next generation satellites will improve coverage, either using a geostationary vantage point or a constellation approach that combines increased swath width and revisit frequency. Observing system simulation experiments (OSSEs) can quantify the relative strengths and weaknesses of the current observing system, identify key gaps, and evaluate the impact that future satellites may have on our ability to detect changes in carbon cycle processes. They are also a critical tool for interpreting present day measurements and maximizing their utility in data assimilation systems.
A significant subset of the US carbon modeling community has come together with support from NASA to conduct a series of OSSEs that are being used to inform both mission implementation and to refine inverse modeling techniques. This effort has produced realistic, model-based synthetic CO2 and CH4 datasets for use in inversion and signal detection experiments using NASA's Goddard Earth Observing System Model (GEOS) model. Here, we present results that highlight the ability of future geostationary and polar-orbiting satellites to provide process level information over different regions in North, central and South America. Specifically, results demonstrate that geostationary observations have great potential to reduce uncertainty in tropical land-atmosphere flux processes while high latitude changes are poorly observed by planned CO2 observing missions. We also discuss the results in the context of COVID19, providing a view of how current and future space-based assets would have observed CO2 decreases associated with the unprecedented changes in human activity.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2020
- Bibcode:
- 2020AGUFMA109...01O
- Keywords:
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- 0315 Biosphere/atmosphere interactions;
- ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE;
- 0322 Constituent sources and sinks;
- ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE;
- 0414 Biogeochemical cycles;
- processes;
- and modeling;
- BIOGEOSCIENCES;
- 0428 Carbon cycling;
- BIOGEOSCIENCES