Bridging the gap between atmospheric concentrations and local ecosystem measurements

This paper demonstrates that atmospheric inversions of CO₂ are a reliable tool for estimating regional fluxes. We compare results of an inversion over 18 days and a 300 × 300 km² domain in southwest France against independent measurements of fluxes from aircraft and towers. The inversion used concentration measurements from 2 towers while the independent data included 27 aircraft transects and 5 flux towers. The inversion reduces the mismatch between prior and independent fluxes, improving both spatial and temporal structures. The present mesoscale atmospheric inversion improves by 30% the CO₂ fluxes over distances of few hundreds of km around the atmospheric measurement locations.