Combining GOSAT XCO2 observations over land and ocean to improve regional CO2 flux estimates

Abstract

We used the GEOS-Chem data assimilation system to examine the impact of combining Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite (GOSAT) XCO2 data over land and ocean on regional CO2 flux estimates for 2010-2012. We found that compared to assimilating only land data, combining land and ocean data produced an a posteriori CO2 distribution that is in better agreement with independent data and fluxes that are in closer agreement with existing top-down and bottom-up estimates. Adding XCO2 data over oceans changed the tropical land regions from a source of 0.64 Pg C/yr to a sink of 0.60 Pg C/yr and produced a corresponding reduction in the estimated sink in northern and southern land regions by 0.49 Pg C/yr and 0.80 Pg C/yr, respectively. This highlights the importance of improved observational coverage in the tropics to better quantify the latitudinal distribution of the terrestrial fluxes. Based only on land XCO2 data, we estimated a strong source in northern tropical South America, which experienced wet conditions in 2010-2012. In contrast, with the land and ocean data, we estimated a sink for this wet region in the north, and a source for the seasonally dry regions in the south and east, which is consistent with our understanding of the impact of moisture availability on the carbon balance of the region. Our results suggest that using satellite data with a more zonally balanced observational coverage could help mitigate discrepancies in CO2 flux estimates; further improvement could be expected with the greater observational coverage provided by the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2.