Atmospheric Carbon and Transport – America: An Earth Venture mission dedicated to improving the accuracy, precision and resolution of atmospheric inverse estimates of CO2 and CH4 sources and sinks

Kenneth James Davis, The Pennsylvania State University, kjd10@psu.edu (Presenter)
David F Baker, CIRA Colorado State University, dfbaker66@gmail.com
John D Barrick, NASA Langley Research Center, john.d.barrick@nasa.gov
Joseph A Berry, Carnegie Institution for Science, joeberry@stanford.edu
Kevin W Bowman, JPL, kevin.w.bowman@jpl.nasa.gov
Edward V. Browell, NASA Langley Research Center/UNH, edward.v.browell@nasa.gov
Lori Bruhwiler, NOAA ESRL, lori.bruhwiler@noaa.gov
Gao Chen, Langley Research Center, gao.chen@nasa.gov
Yonghoon Choi, NASA LaRC/SSAI, yonghoon.choi-1@nasa.gov
George James Collatz, NASA GSFC, jim.collatz@nasa.gov
Robert B. Cook, Environmental Sciences Division, ORNL, cookrb@ornl.gov
Sean Crowell, U.of Oklahoma, scrowell@ou.edu
Scott Denning, Colorado State University, denning@atmos.colostate.edu
Jeremy Todd Dobler, Exelis Inc, jeremy.dobler@exelisinc.com
Andrew R Jacobson, University of Colorado and NOAA Earth System Research Lab, andy.jacobson@noaa.gov
Anna Karion, NOAA/ESRL, anna.karion@noaa.gov
Klaus Keller, The Pennsylvania State University, kkeller@geosc.psu.edu
Thomas Lauvaux, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, tul5@meteo.psu.edu
Bing Lin, NASA LARC, bing.lin@nasa.gov
Matthew J McGill, NASA GSFC, matthew.j.mcgill@nasa.gov
Byron Meadows, NASA LARC, byron.l.meadows@nasa.gov
Anna M Michalak, Carnegie Institution for Science, michalak@stanford.edu
Natasha Miles, Penn State University, nmiles@met.psu.edu
John Miller, NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, john.b.miller@noaa.gov
Berrien Moore III, Univ. of Oklahoma, berrien@ou.edu
Amin Nehrir, NASA Langley Research Center, amin.r.nehrir@nasa.gov
Lesley Ott, NASA GSFC, lesley.e.ott@nasa.gov
Michael D Obland, NASA LARC, michael.d.obland@nasa.gov
Christopher O'Dell, Colorado State University, odell@atmos.colostate.edu
Steven Pawson, NASA GMAO, steven.pawson@nasa.gov
Gabrielle Petron, NOAA ESRL / GMD, gabrielle.petron@noaa.gov
Scott Richardson, Penn State University, srichardson@psu.edu
Andrew Schuh, Colorado State University, aschuh@kiwi.atmos.colostate.edu
Colm Sweeney, NOAA/ESRL GMD, colm.sweeney@noaa.gov
Pieter Tans, NOAA, pieter.tans@noaa.gov
Yaxing Wei, ORNL, weiy@ornl.gov
Melissa Mei Ying Yang, NASA Langley Research Center, melissa.yang@nasa.gov
Fuqing Zhang, Penn State University, fzhang@psu.edu

The Atmospheric Carbon and Transport-America (ACT-America) mission will enable and demonstrate a new generation of atmospheric inversion systems for quantifying CO2 and CH4 sources and sinks at regional scales. These inversion systems will be able to 1) evaluate and improve terrestrial carbon cycle models, and 2) monitor carbon fluxes to support climate-change mitigation efforts. The overarching goal described above will be achieved via three mission goals: 1) quantify and reduce atmospheric transport uncertainties; 2) improve regional-scale estimates of CO2 and CH4 fluxes; and 3) evaluate the sensitivity of Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) column CO2 measurements to regional variability in tropospheric CO2. ACT-America will achieve these goals by deploying two aircraft instrumented with remote and in situ sensors to observe how mid-latitude weather systems interact with CO2 and CH4 sources and sinks to create atmospheric CO2/CH4 distributions. The ACT-America schedule includes five 6-week campaigns across four different seasons and 3 years (2016-2019). A model ensemble will be used to predict atmospheric CO2 and CH4 distributions. We will prune the ensemble to those members best able to simulate the measured CO2 and CH4 distributions. The pruned ensemble will form the basis of the next generation of atmospheric inversion systems, enabling more precise and accurate, regional-scale atmospheric inversions.

ACT-America will also collect high-quality CO2 measurements across a variety of conditions directly under OCO-2 overpasses to evaluate the ability of OCO-2 to observe high-resolution atmospheric CO2 variations. The results of these studies will be integrated in the final year of the mission into an inverse analysis of North American sources and sinks of CO2 and CH4 from 2009 through 2018. The transport and flux processes, and OCO-2 data characteristics studied will be common across mid-latitudes, thus the mission should improve atmospheric inversions around the globe.

Presentation Type:  Poster

Session:  General Contributions   (Tue 4:35 PM)

Associated Project(s): 

• Related Activity: Related Activity or Previously Funded CC&E Activity not listed ...details

Poster Location ID: 139