Inverse modelling method named Maximum likelihood Ensemble Filter (MLEF) was used to estimate gridded surface CO fluxes using continuous, flask and Comprehensive Observation Network for TRace gases by AIrLiner (CONTRAIL) data for the years 2009-2011. Here, MLEF coupled with Parametric Chemistry Transport Model (PCTM) driven by Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA2) weather data has been used. Flux estimation was done by solving separate multiplicative biases for photosynthesis, respiration, and air-sea gas exchange fluxes. Hourly land fluxes derived from Simple Biosphere-version 3 (SiB3) model, Takahashi ocean fluxes and Brenkert fossil fuel emissions were used as the prior fluxes. The inversion was carried out by assimilating hourly CO observations, According to this study, North America showed about 60-80% uncertainty reduction while the Asian and European regions showed moderate results with 50-60% uncertainty reduction. Most other land and oceanic regions showed less than 30% uncertainty reduction. The results were mainly compared with well-known CarbonTracker and some parallel inversion studies by considering long-term averages of the estimated fluxes for the TransCom regions. Boreal North America, Temperate North America and Australia showed similar annual averages in each case. Tropical Asia and Europe showed comparable results with all other studies except for the CarbonTracker. The biases were poorly constrained in the regions having few measurement sites like South America, Africa and Eurasian Temperate which showed completely different result with other studies.

The Atmospheric Carbon and Transport (ACT) – America NASA Earth Venture Suborbital Mission set out to improve regional atmospheric greenhouse gas (GHG) inversions by exploring the intersection of the strong GHG fluxes and vigorous atmospheric transport that occurs within the midlatitudes. Two research aircraft instrumented with remote and in situ sensors to measure GHG mole fractions, associated trace gases, and atmospheric state variables collected 1140.7 flight hours of research data, distributed across 305 individual aircraft sorties, coordinated within 121 research flight days, and spanning five, six-week seasonal flight campaigns in the central and eastern United States. Flights sampled 31 synoptic sequences, including fair weather and frontal conditions, at altitudes ranging from the atmospheric boundary layer to the upper free troposphere. The observations were complemented with global and regional GHG flux and transport model ensembles. We found that midlatitude weather systems contain large spatial gradients in GHG mole fractions, in patterns that were consistent as a function of season and altitude. We attribute these patterns to a combination of regional terrestrial fluxes and inflow from the continental boundaries. These observations, when segregated according to altitude and air mass, provide a variety of quantitative insights into the realism of regional CO2 and CH4 fluxes and atmospheric GHG transport realizations. The ACT-America data set and ensemble modeling methods provide benchmarks for the development of atmospheric inversion systems. As global and regional atmospheric inversions incorporate ACT-America’s findings and methods, we anticipate these systems will produce increasingly accurate and precise sub-continental GHG flux estimates.

Causes of climate predictions’ uncertainty include wide spread in modeled gross primary productivity (GPP) for evergreen broadleaf forests. Deterministic predictions inherently lack the portion of variability that a regression’s error term summarizes. Omitted predictors’ contribution to error represent simulations’ necessary underestimation of real variability. Earth system model outputs with high variability relative to reference data warrant skeptical examination. We compare three statistical and 15 process models to site-level means, seasonal amplitude and driver responsiveness of GPP as calculated at six Amazon eddy covariance (EC) towers. Current month’s weather determines only 12% of the variability in EC GPP, implying that models whose predicted GPP’s variability approaches that of EC GPP probably are substantially hypersensitive to weather drivers. Roughly half the models have stronger seasonal GPP variability than ECs show, and inaccurately identify the timing of annual minimum GPP. Responses to temperature and light for some highly seasonal models are of the opposite sign as EC GPP’s. Strongly seasonal models’ deepest dip in photosynthesis both occurs later in the dry season and is more severe than EC estimates. Excessive reactivity to drivers appears to cause the high simulated variability of the strongly seasonal models.