On the Vertical Gradient in CO2

Attempts to constrain surface fluxes of carbon from atmospheric measurements of carbon dioxide have primarily focused on surface boundary layer measurements, because information about surface fluxes is least diluted close to the locations where the fluxes occur. However, errors in model ventilation of air in the vertical can be misinterpreted as local surface fluxes. Satellites which measure column integrated CO2 are expected to represent a major advance in part because they observe the entire atmospheric column. Recent work has highlighted the fact that vertical gradients in carbon concentrations can give us information about where vertical mixing errors are likely to be misinterpreted as local surface fluxes, but passive tracer evidence suggests that models that capture vertical profiles on the ocean do poorly on the land (and vice versa), suggesting that the problem of correctly treating vertical mixing in inverse studies is more fundamental than picking the "best" model. We consider observations of the vertical gradient in CO2 from aircrafts and from a comparison of satellites that observe in the near infrared (which observe the column integrated CO2 field) and the thermal infrared (which observe the upper troposphere). We evaluate the feasibility of using these satellites for determining the vertical gradient in CO2. We examine how observations of the vertical gradient of CO2 allow us to differentiate the imprint of vertical mixing and the imprint in surface fluxes on the observed field of atmospheric CO2.