The 2023 Canadian forest fires have been extreme in scale and intensity with more than seven times the average annual area burned compared to the previous four decades. Here, we quantify the carbon emissions from these fires from May to September 2023 on the basis of inverse modelling of satellite carbon monoxide observations. We find that the magnitude of the carbon emissions is 647 TgC (570-727 TgC), comparable to the annual fossil fuel emissions of large nations, with only India, China and the USA releasing more carbon per year.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFor methane emission reduction strategies in urban areas to be effective, large emitters must be identified. Recent studies in U.S.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHigh-resolution, laboratory, absorption spectra of the oxygen (O) band measured using cavity ring-down spectroscopy were fitted using the Voigt and speed-dependent Voigt line shapes. We found that the speed-dependent Voigt line shape was better able to model the measured absorption coefficients than the Voigt line shape. We used these line shape models to calculate absorption coefficients to retrieve atmospheric total columns abundances of O from ground-based spectra from four Fourier transform spectrometers that are apart of the Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON) Lower O total columns were retrieved with the speed-dependent Voigt line shape, and the difference between the total columns retrieved using the Voigt and speed-dependent Voigt line shapes increased as a function of solar zenith angle.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChevallier showed a column CO ([Formula: see text]) anomaly of ±0.5 parts per million forced by a uniform net biosphere exchange (NBE) anomaly of 2.5 gigatonnes of carbon over the tropical continents within a year, so he claimed that the inferred NBE uncertainties should be larger than presented in Liu We show that a much concentrated NBE anomaly led to much larger [Formula: see text] perturbations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe powerful El Niño event of 2015-2016 - the third most intense since the 1950s - has exerted a large impact on the Earth's natural climate system. The column-averaged CO dry-air mole fraction (XCO) observations from satellites and ground-based networks are analyzed together with in situ observations for the period of September 2014 to October 2016. From the differences between satellite (OCO-2) observations and simulations using an atmospheric chemistry-transport model, we estimate that, relative to the mean annual fluxes for 2014, the most recent El Niño has contributed to an excess CO emission from the Earth's surface (land + ocean) to the atmosphere in the range of 2.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe 2015-2016 El Niño led to historically high temperatures and low precipitation over the tropics, while the growth rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO) was the largest on record. Here we quantify the response of tropical net biosphere exchange, gross primary production, biomass burning, and respiration to these climate anomalies by assimilating column CO, solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence, and carbon monoxide observations from multiple satellites. Relative to the 2011 La Niña, the pantropical biosphere released 2.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis paper presents an improved photon path length probability density function method that permits simultaneous retrievals of column-average greenhouse gas mole fractions and light path modifications through the atmosphere when processing high-resolution radiance spectra acquired from space. We primarily describe the methodology and retrieval setup and then apply them to the processing of spectra measured by the Greenhouse gases Observing SATellite (GOSAT). We have demonstrated substantial improvements of the data processing with simultaneous carbon dioxide and light path retrievals and reasonable agreement of the satellite-based retrievals against ground-based Fourier transform spectrometer measurements provided by the Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe use historical and new atmospheric trace gas observations to refine the estimated source of methane (CH(4)) emitted into California's South Coast Air Basin (the larger Los Angeles metropolitan region). Referenced to the California Air Resources Board (CARB) CO emissions inventory, total CH(4) emissions are 0.44 ± 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA global network of ground-based Fourier transform spectrometers has been founded to remotely measure column abundances of CO(2), CO, CH(4), N(2)O and other molecules that absorb in the near-infrared. These measurements are directly comparable with the near-infrared total column measurements from space-based instruments. With stringent requirements on the instrumentation, acquisition procedures, data processing and calibration, the Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON) achieves an accuracy and precision in total column measurements that is unprecedented for remote-sensing observations (better than 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF