Project Funding: 2015 - 2018

NRA: 2014 NASA: OCO-2 Science Team for the OCO-2 Mission   

Funded by NASA

Abstract:
We propose to contribute to the OCO-2 science team by providing targeted modeling and assimilation products and expertise in support of OCO-2 data production, quality assurance, and science applications. This work builds on ongoing, funded research led by NASA’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) as part of NASA’s Carbon Monitoring System (CMS). As part of the science team, we propose to contribute new analyses derived from CMS supported activities including 1) a 0.5 degree climatology of atmospheric CO2 based on GEOS-5 simulations for the period 2003-present using observationally informed land and ocean flux products; 2) assessment of OCO-2 data through assimilation into the GEOS-5 constituent data assimilation system; 3) evaluation of the impact of aerosol and meteorological errors on OCO-2 data; and 4) flux inversion analyses using OCO-2 data with a focus on the impact of OCO-2 measurement error in flux estimation. We anticipate the model-based climatology and associated variance estimates will aid the retrieval team in identifying potential outlier data in need of further investigation. Assessment of errors against assimilation products created using a combination of OCO-2 and other CO2 products (i.e. surface, TCCON, and GOSAT) will provide a separate indicator of data quality. Finally, flux inversion calculations focused on measurement errors will complement CMS inversion products whose focus is to better understand the propagation of prior flux and transport errors.