Evaluation of 2001 springtime CO transport over West Africa using MOPITT CO measurements assimilated in a global chemistry transport model

Abstract

The global chemistry and transport model MOCAGE (Modèle de Chimie Atmosphérique à Grande Echelle) is used to investigate the contribution of transport to the carbon monoxide (CO) distribution over West Africa during spring 2001. It is constrained with the CO profiles provided by the Measurements Of Pollution In The Troposphere (MOPITT) instrument through a sequential assimilation technique based on a suboptimal Kalman filter. The improvement of tropospheric CO distribution from MOCAGE is evaluated by comparing the model results (with and without assimilation) with the MOPITT CO concentrations observed during the analysed period (between 2001 March 15 to 2001 April 30), and also with independent in situ CMDL and TRACE-P observations. The initial overestimation in high CO emissions areas (Africa, SE Asia and NW coast of South America) is considerably reduced by using the MOPITT CO assimilation. We analysed the assimilated CO for a period of three successive 15 d periods in terms of average fields over West Africa and contributions to the CO budget of transport and chemical sources. It is found that the horizontal and vertical CO distributions are strongly dependent on the characteristics of the large-scale flows during spring, marked by the onset of the low-level southerly monsoon flow and the gradual increase of the well-known African and tropical easterly jets at middle and upper levels, respectively. Total transport by the mean flow (horizontal plus vertical advection) is important in the CO budget since it mostly compensates the local sink or source generated by chemical reactions and small-scale processes. The major source of CO is concentrated in the lower troposphere (1000-800 hPa) mainly due to convergent low-level flow advecting CO from surrounding regions and surface emissions (biomass burning). Vertical transport removes 70% of this low-level CO and redistributes it in the middle troposphere (800-400 hPa) where chemical reactions and horizontal exports contribute to the loss of CO. A lesser proportion is transported upwards into upper troposphere, and then horizontally, out of the considered domain. Copyright © Blackwell Munksgaard, 2006.