HR: 1340h
AN: B53B-1193    [Abstracts]
TI: Assessment of Regional Differences in Frontal Atmospheric CO2 Variations Across North America, Europe, South America, and Africa Using a Continuous Global Surface Observation Network
AU: * Parazoo, N C
EM: nparazoo@atmos.colostate.edu
AF: Colorado State University, Department of Atmospheric Science 1371 Campus Delivery, Fort Collins, CO 80523, United States
AU: Denning, S
EM: denning@atmos.colostate.edu
AF: Colorado State University, Department of Atmospheric Science 1371 Campus Delivery, Fort Collins, CO 80523, United States
AU: Kawa, R
EM: kawa@maia.gsfc.nasa.gov
AF: Goddard Space Flight Center Code 916, National Aeronautics and Space Administration Greenbelt Rd., Greenbelt, MD 20771,
AU: Corbin, K
EM: kdcorbin@atmos.colostate.edu
AF: Colorado State University, Department of Atmospheric Science 1371 Campus Delivery, Fort Collins, CO 80523, United States
AU: Lokupitia, R
EM: ravi@atmos.colostate.edu
AF: Colorado State University, Department of Atmospheric Science 1371 Campus Delivery, Fort Collins, CO 80523, United States
AB: A whole new suite of continuous CO₂ observations across the globe has opened up opportunities for understanding the carbon cycle at local and regional scales, through both observational analysis and top-down CO₂ inversion techniques. CO₂ surface observations contain high frequency variations due to local biology and atmospheric transport. Frontal passage events, common in mid-latitudes, allow for air mass exchanges to occur, which can sometimes cause abrupt CO₂ variations on the order of a typical continental seasonal cycle to occur. Since these spikes, which often occur under the presence of frontal cloud cover, are not necessarily observed under the current flask network or very likely satellite missions due to cloud contamination, they should not be ignored with respect to data assimilation. In this poster, CO₂ patterns established during frontal events in Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes are analyzed using surface observations from over 20 towers across the globe and a global chemistry transport model (PCTM, and other CTM's&pused in TRANSCOM), and compared to other frontal variations across mid-latitudes. We find that systematic patterns exist and that they appear to be controlled regionally by upstream influences. We also find an important difference between mid-latitudes and tropical regions in that in mid-latitudes, air mass separation by fronts contributes significantly to day-to-day variations, while tropical variations are controlled more by transport by trade winds and convective depletion of the PBL.
DE: 0428 Carbon cycling (4806)
DE: 3322 Land/atmosphere interactions (1218, 1631, 1843)
DE: 3334 Middle atmosphere dynamics (0341, 0342)
SC: Biogeosciences [B]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting