Effect of continental sources and sinks on the seasonal and latitudinal gradient of atmospheric carbon dioxide over East Asia

doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2013.07.055

Elsevier

Atmospheric Environment

Volume 79, November 2013, Pages 853-860

Atmospheric Environment

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2013年07月05日5 Get rights and content

Under a Creative Commons license

Open access

Highlights

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Examination of regional scale atmospheric CO₂ column concentration over East Asia.
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The latest regional scale CO₂ simulation was conducted and evaluated.
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The recent ACOS-GOSAT, satellite CO₂ retrieval data was applied for the region.
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The characteristics of atmospheric CO₂ spatiotemporal variability over the East Asia.
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Identification of the main driving forces (sources/sinks) for the variabilities.

Abstract

Here we demonstrate the sharp seasonal and latitudinal gradient of atmospheric CO₂ over East Asia, where there are relatively few ground-based observations. The Greenhouse gases Observing SATellite (GOSAT) column-averaged dry air CO₂ mole fraction (xCO₂) retrieved by NASA's Atmospheric CO₂ Observations from Space (ACOS) (2009–2011) program and GEOS-Chem nested-grid CO₂ results are used. The strong anthropogenic emissions mainly from China and intensive vegetation uptake from northeastern Asia lead to a clear seasonal change of the xCO₂ between spring maximum and summer minimum (>10 ppm). In particular, the steep latitudinal gradient of summer time xCO₂ by 3–5 ppm in the vicinity of the Korean Peninsula (32°N-44°N) is likely attributed to the large difference in CO₂ fluxes among industry/cities, northeastern forests and the northwest Pacific region. This study represents the current progress to understand sub-continental scale atmospheric CO₂ variabilities with recent satellite retrievals and nested-grid modeling.

Keywords

Atmospheric CO₂

East Asia

GOSAT

ACOS/OCO-2

GEOS-Chem