@article{aa139b5b18d047358b41b8a1c7a1dab2,
title = "A Road Map for Improving the Treatment of Uncertainties in High-Resolution Regional Carbon Flux Inverse Estimates",
abstract = "Atmospheric inversions allow us to estimate the terrestrial carbon sink by combining atmospheric observations with atmospheric transport models. However, these inverse estimates remain highly uncertain. Here we quantify uncertainties in simulations of North American atmospheric CO2 concentrations using a probabilistic approach. We demonstrate that uncertainty in fossil fuel emissions is a key factor in the uncertainty surrounding biospheric flux estimates. We show that atmospheric transport uncertainties in state-of-the-art numerical weather models diminish when averaged over time, while uncertainties in large-scale CO2 boundary inflow considerably impair our ability to quantify regional fluxes. Current estimates of the North America land sink that neglect the uncertainties in CO2 boundary inflow and fossil fuel emissions are likely overconfident. Our findings suggest that targeted use of new atmospheric observations and improved quantification of uncertainty components are a promising avenue to improve atmospheric inversions with the goal to refine estimates of biospheric CO2 fluxes on regional and continental scales.",
keywords = "Boundary inflow, CO2 modeling, Fossil fuel emissions, Regional carbon flux, Transport, Uncertainty",
author = "Sha Feng and Thomas Lauvaux and Klaus Keller and Davis, {Kenneth J.} and Peter Rayner and Tomohiro Oda and Gurney, {Kevin R.}",
note = "Funding Information: Primary funding for this research was provided by NASA's Earth Sciences Division as part of the Atmospheric Carbon and Transport (ACT) – America Earth Venture Suborbital mission (Grant NNX15AG76G to Penn State). We thank I. Baker at Colorado State University for providing SiB3 simulated net ecosystem exchanges, A. Schuh at Colorado State University for providing the GEOS‐Chem simulated CO 2 concentrations, and S. Basu at the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory Global Monitoring Division for providing the TM5 simulated CO 2 concentrations. We also thank M. P. Butler at the Pennsylvania State University for generating the codes that incorporate the global modeled CO 2 concentrations into the regional model with the accompanying conservation of mass (achieved at https://github.com/psu‐inversion/WRF_boundary_coupling ) and J. Berner at the National Center for Atmospheric Research for technical support in implementing the stochastic kinetic energy backscatter scheme. Computing resources were provided by the NASA High‐End Computing (HEC) Program through the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division at Ames Research Center. None of the authors are aware of conflicts of interests. Funding Information: Primary funding for this research was provided by NASA's Earth Sciences Division as part of the Atmospheric Carbon and Transport (ACT) ? America Earth Venture Suborbital mission (Grant NNX15AG76G to Penn State). We thank I. Baker at Colorado State University for providing SiB3 simulated net ecosystem exchanges, A. Schuh at Colorado State University for providing the GEOS-Chem simulated CO2 concentrations, and S. Basu at the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory Global Monitoring Division for providing the TM5 simulated CO2 concentrations. We also thank M. P. Butler at the Pennsylvania State University for generating the codes that incorporate the global modeled CO2 concentrations into the regional model with the accompanying conservation of mass (achieved at https://github.com/psu-inversion/WRF_boundary_coupling) and J. Berner at the National Center for Atmospheric Research for technical support in implementing the stochastic kinetic energy backscatter scheme. Computing resources were provided by the NASA High-End Computing (HEC) Program through the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division at Ames Research Center. None of the authors are aware of conflicts of interests. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright}2019. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.",
year = "2019",
month = nov,
day = "28",
doi = "10.1029/2019GL082987",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "46",
pages = "13461--13469",
journal = "Geophysical Research Letters",
issn = "0094-8276",
publisher = "American Geophysical Union",
number = "22",
}