Calibration of the Total Carbon Column Observing Network using aircraft profile data

Creators: Wunch, D.; Toon, G. C.; Wennberg, P. O.; Blavier, J.-F. L.; Keppel-Aleks, G.; Roehl, C. M.

Abstract

The Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON) produces precise measurements of the column average dry-air mole fractions of CO_2, CO, CH_4, N_2O and H_2O at a variety of sites worldwide. These observations rely on spectroscopic parameters that are not known with sufficient accuracy to compute total columns that can be used in combination with in situ measurements. The TCCON must therefore be calibrated to World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in situ trace gas measurement scales. We present a calibration of TCCON data using WMO-scale instrumentation aboard aircraft that measured profiles over four TCCON stations during 2008 and 2009. These calibrations are compared with similar observations made in 2004 and 2006. The results indicate that a single, global calibration factor for each gas accurately captures the TCCON total column data within error.

Additional Information

© 2010 Author(s). This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union. Received: 27 May 2010. Published in Atmos. Meas. Tech. Discuss.: 17 June 2010 Revised: 16 September 2010. Accepted: 17 September 2010. Published: 6 October 2010. The authors wish to thank Stephanie Vay and Donald R. Blake for guidance and the use of the INTEX-NA CO2 and CH4 profiles, respectively. The INTEX-NA data were downloaded from ftp://ftp-air.larc.nasa.gov/pub/INTEXA/DC8 AIRCRAFT/ on 10 September 2010. NCEP Reanalysis data is provided by the NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSD, Boulder, Colorado, USA, from their Web site at http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/. Data were obtained through the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program sponsored by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research. Data were generated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL), Carbon Cycle Greenhouse Gases Group, including flask data from Andrews et al. (2009). The Meteorological Research Institute tower measurements are described by Inoue and Matsueda (1996). US funding for TCCON comes from NASA's Terrestrial Ecology Program, the Orbiting Carbon Observatory project and the DOE/ARM Program. Part of this work was performed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with NASA. ACE is funded primarily by the Canadian Space Agency. Support for the Learjet-25 measurements was provided by the NASA ASCENDS development and ESTO IIP programs. Support for the flask measurements at the SGP ARM site is from LBNL-DOE contract DE-AC02-05CH11231. We acknowledge funding for Darwin and Wollongong from the Australian Research Council, Projects DP0879468 and LP0562346 with the Australian Greenhouse Office. The National Center for Atmospheric Research is sponsored by the National Science Foundation. Edited by: H. Worden.

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