HR: 10:50h
AN: A12B-03 [Abstracts]
TI: Large-Scale Variability of Middle and Upper Tropospheric CO2
AU: * Li, Q
EM: qinbin.li@jpl.nasa.gov
AF: Jet Propulsion Lab, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109, United States
AU: Jiang, X
EM: xun.jiang@jpl.nasa.gov
AF: Jet Propulsion Lab, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109, United States
AU: Chahine, M T
EM: Moustafa.T.Chahine@jpl.nasa.gov
AF: Jet Propulsion Lab, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109, United States
AU: Olsen, E T
EM: Edward.T.Olsen@jpl.nasa.gov
AF: Jet Propulsion Lab, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109, United States
AU: Chen, L L
EM: Luke.Chen@jpl.nasa.gov
AF: Jet Propulsion Lab, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109, United States
AU: Yung, Y L
EM: yly@gps.caltech.edu
AF: California Institute of Technology, 1200 E. California Blvd, Pasadena, CA 91125, United
States
AB:
It is generally assumed that upper tropospheric CO2 exhibits little spatial variability. We present clear
evidence to the contrary. Our analysis centers on CO2 mixing ratios for selected months of 2003 from AIRS
retrievals using the Vanishing Partial Derivative (VPD) method. The AIRS middle to upper tropospheric
(~500-300 hPa) data CO2 show unequivocally large spatial and temporal variability in the northern
midlatitudes in summer. For example, there is a ~3 ppmv longitudinal gradient in the concentrations
across North America in July. Aircraft in situ observations from CO2 the COBRA and INTEX-NA campaigns
support such large variability. Compared with the AIRS data and aircraft observations, results from CO2
simulations using current global three-dimensional chemistry and transport models (CTMs) including the GEOS-
Chem and MOZART-2 models tend to show much dampened variability but with consistent distributions. In
addition to the surface sources/uptakes, the distributions of AIRS CO2 are modulated by large-scale
circulation such as the midlatitude jet streams in both hemispheres and by synoptic weather systems including
warm conveyor belts (WCBs).
DE: 0322 Constituent sources and sinks
DE: 0330 Geochemical cycles (1030)
DE: 0365 Troposphere: composition and chemistry
DE: 0368 Troposphere: constituent transport and chemistry
DE: 0428 Carbon cycling (4806)
SC: Atmospheric Sciences [A]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting