ALBERT

Description: The Bayesian framework of CO2 flux inversions permits estimates of the retrieved flux uncertainties. Here, the reliability of these theoretical estimates is studied through a comparison against the misfits between the inverted fluxes and independent measurements of the CO2 Net Ecosystem Exchange (NEE) made by the eddy covariance technique at local (few hectares) scale. Regional inversions at 0.5° resolution are applied for the western European domain where ~ 50 eddy covariance sites are operated. These inversions are conducted for the period 2002–2007. They use a mesoscale atmospheric transport model, a prior estimate of the NEE from a terrestrial ecosystem model and rely on the variational assimilation of in situ continuous measurements of CO2 atmospheric mole fractions. Averaged over monthly periods and over the whole domain, the misfits are in good agreement with the theoretical uncertainties for prior and inverted NEE, and pass the chi-square test for the variance at the 30% and 5% significance levels respectively, despite the scale mismatch and the independence between the prior (respectively inverted) NEE and the flux measurements. The theoretical uncertainty reduction for the monthly NEE at the measurement sites is 53% while the inversion decreases the standard deviation of the misfits by 38%. These results build confidence in the NEE estimates at the European/monthly scales and in their theoretical uncertainty from the regional inverse modelling system. However, the uncertainties at the monthly (respectively annual) scale remain larger than the amplitude of the inter-annual variability of monthly (respectively annual) fluxes, so that this study does not engender confidence in the inter-annual variations. The uncertainties at the monthly scale are significantly smaller than the seasonal variations. The seasonal cycle of the inverted fluxes is thus reliable. In particular, the CO2 sink period over the European continent likely ends later than represented by the prior ecosystem model.

Description: Spaceborne reflectance measurements from the POLDER instrument are used to study the specific directional signature close to the backscatter direction. The data analysis makes it possible to derive the extinction-to-backscatter ratio (EBR), which is related to the inverse of the scattering phase function for an angle of 180° and is needed for a quantitative interpretation of lidar observations (active measurements). In addition, the multidirectional measurements are used to quantify the scattering phase function variations close to backscatter, which also provide some indication of the aerosol particle size and shape. The spatial distributions of both parameters show consistent patterns that are consistent with the aerosol type distributions. Pollution aerosols have an EBR close to 70, desert dust values are on the order of 50 and EBR of marine aerosols is close to 25. The scattering phase function shows an increase with the scattering angle close to backscatter. The relative increase ∂lnP/∂γ is close to 0.01 for dust and pollution type aerosols and 0.06 for marine type aerosols. These values are consistent with those retrieved from Mie simulations.

Description: Despite an emerging body of literature linking canopy albedo to forest management, understanding of the process is still fragmented. We combined a stand-level forest gap model with a canopy radiation transfer model and satellite-derived model parameters to quantify the effects of forest thinning, that is removing trees at a certain time during the forest rotation, on summertime canopy albedo. The effects of different forest species (pine, beech, oak) and four thinning strategies (light to intense thinning regimes) were examined. During stand establishment, summertime canopy albedo is driven by tree species. In the later stages of stand development, the effect of tree species on summertime canopy albedo decreases in favour of an increasing influence of forest thinning on summertime canopy albedo. These trends continue until the end of the rotation where thinning explains up to 50% of the variance in near-infrared canopy albedo and up to 70% of the variance in visible canopy albedo. More intense thinning lowers the summertime shortwave albedo in the canopy by as much as 0.02 compared to unthinned forest. The structural changes associated with forest thinning can be described by the change in LAI in combination with crown volume. However, forests with identical canopy structure can have different summertime albedo values due to their location: the further north a forest is situated, the more the solar zenith angle increases and thus the higher is the summertime canopy albedo, independent of the wavelength. Despite the increase of absolute summertime canopy albedo values with latitude, the difference in canopy albedo between managed and unmanaged forest decreases with increasing latitude. Forest management thus strongly altered summertime forest albedo.

Description: A globally integrated carbon observation and analysis system is needed to improve the fundamental understanding of the global carbon cycle, to improve our ability to project future changes, and to verify the effectiveness of policies aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase carbon sequestration. Building an integrated carbon observation system requires transformational advances from the existing sparse, exploratory framework towards a dense, robust, and sustained system in all components: anthropogenic emissions, the atmosphere, the ocean, and the terrestrial biosphere. The goal of this study is to identify the current state of carbon observations and needs for a global integrated carbon observation system that can be built in the next decade. A key conclusion is the substantial expansion (by several orders of magnitude) of the ground-based observation networks required to reach the high spatial resolution for CO2 and CH4 fluxes, and for carbon stocks for addressing policy relevant objectives, and attributing flux changes to underlying processes in each region. In order to establish flux and stock diagnostics over remote areas such as the southern oceans, tropical forests and the Arctic, in situ observations will have to be complemented with remote-sensing measurements. Remote sensing offers the advantage of dense spatial coverage and frequent revisit. A key challenge is to bring remote sensing measurements to a level of long-term consistency and accuracy so that they can be efficiently combined in models to reduce uncertainties, in synergy with ground-based data. Bringing tight observational constraints on fossil fuel and land use change emissions will be the biggest challenge for deployment of a policy-relevant integrated carbon observation system. This will require in-situ and remotely sensed data at much higher resolution and density than currently achieved for natural fluxes, although over a small land area (cities, industrial sites, power plants), as well as the inclusion of fossil fuel CO2 proxy measurements such as radiocarbon in CO2 and carbon-fuel combustion tracers. Additionally, a policy relevant carbon monitoring system should also provide mechanisms for reconciling regional top-down (atmosphere-based) and bottom-up (surface-based) flux estimates across the range of spatial and temporal scales relevant to mitigation policies. The success of the system will rely on long-term commitments to monitoring, on improved international collaboration to fill gaps in the current observations, on sustained efforts to improve access to the different data streams and make databases inter-operable, and on the calibration of each component of the system to agreed-upon international scales.

Description: The net effect of aerosol Direct Radiative Forcing (DRF) is the balance between the scattering effect that reflects solar radiation back to space (cooling), and the absorption that decreases the reflected sunlight (warming). The amplitude of these two effects and their balance depends on the aerosol load, its absorptivity, the cloud fraction and the respective position of aerosol and cloud layers. In this study, we use the information provided by CALIOP (CALIPSO satellite) and MODIS (AQUA satellite) instruments as input data to a Rapid Radiative Transfer Model (RRTM) and quantify the shortwave (SW) aerosol direct atmospheric forcing, over the South-East Atlantic. The combination of the passive and active measurements allows estimates of the horizontal and vertical distributions of the aerosol and cloud parameters. We use a parametrization of the Single Scattering Albedo (SSA) based on the satellite-derived Angstrom coefficient. The South East Atlantic is a particular region, where bright stratocumulus clouds are often topped by absorbing smoke particles. Results from radiative transfer simulations confirm the similar amplitude of the cooling effect, due to light scattering by the aerosols, and the warming effect, due to the absorption by the same particles. Over six years of satellite retrievals, from 2005 to 2010, the South-East Atlantic all-sky SW DRF is −0.03 W m−2, with a spatial standard deviation of 8.03 W m−2. In good agreement with previous estimates, statistics show that a cloud fraction larger than 0.5 is generally associated with positive all-sky DRF. In case of cloudy-sky and aerosol located only above the cloud top, a SSA larger than 0.91 and cloud optical thickness larger than 4 can be considered as threshold values, beyond which the resulting radiative forcing becomes positive.

Description: Water stable isotopes provide integrated tracers of the atmospheric water cycle, affected by changes in air mass origin, non-convective and convective processes and continental recycling. Novel remote sensing and in situ measuring techniques have recently offered opportunities for monitoring atmospheric water vapour isotopic composition. Recently developed infrared laser spectrometers allow for continuous in situ measurements of surface water vapour δDv and δ18Ov. So far, very few intercomparison of measurements conducted using different techniques have been achieved at a given location, due to difficulties intrinsic to the comparison of integrated with local measurements. Nudged simulations conducted with high resolution isotopically enabled GCMs provide a consistent framework for comparison with the different types of observations. Here, we compare simulations conducted with the ECHAM5-wiso model with three types of water vapour isotopic data obtained during summer 2012 at the forest site of Kourovka, Western Siberia: daily mean GOSAT δDv soundings, hourly ground-based FTIR total atmospheric columnar δDv amounts, and in situ hourly Picarro δDv measurements. There is an excellent correlation between observed and predicted δDv at surface while the comparison between water column values derived from the model compares well with FTIR and GOSAT estimates. This research was supported by the grant of Russian government under the contract 11.G34.31.0064.

Description: Spaceborne reflectance measurements from the POLDER instrument are used to study the specific directional signature close to the backscatter direction. The data analysis makes it possible to derive the extinction to backscatter ratio (EBR) which is the invert of the scattering phase function for an angle of 180° and is needed for a quantitative interpretation of lidar observations (active measurements). In addition, the multi-directional measurements are used to quantify the scattering phase function variations close to backscatter, which also provide some indication of the aerosol particle size and shape. The spatial distributions of both parameters show consistent patterns that are consistent with the aerosol type distributions. Pollution aerosols have an EBR close to 70, desert dust values are on the order of 50, while marine aerosol's is close to 25. The scattering phase function shows an increase with the scattering angle close to backscatter. The relative increase ∂lnP/∂ γ is close to 0.01 for dust and pollution type aerosols and 0.06 for marine type aerosols. These values are consistent with those retrieved from Mie simulations.

Description: The Bayesian framework of CO2 flux inversions permits estimates of the retrieved flux uncertainties. Here, the reliability of these theoretical estimates is studied through a comparison against the misfits between the inverted fluxes and independent measurements of the CO2 Net Ecosystem Exchange (NEE) made by the eddy covariance technique at local (few hectares) scale. Regional inversions at 0.5° resolution are applied for the western European domain where ~ 50 eddy covariance sites are operated. These inversions are conducted for a 6-yr period (2002–2007). They use a mesoscale atmospheric transport model, a prior estimate of the NEE from a terrestrial ecosystem model and rely on the variational assimilation of in situ continuous measurements of CO2 atmospheric mole fractions. The misfits averaged over monthly periods and over the whole domain, are in good agreement with the theoretical uncertainties for prior (respectively inverted) NEE, with positive chi-square tests for the variance at the 2% (respectively 20%) significance levels, despite the scale mismatch and the independence between the prior (respectively inverted) NEE and the flux measurements. The theoretical uncertainty reduction for the monthly NEE at the measurement sites is 53% while the inversion actually decreases the standard deviation of the misfits by as much as 38%. These results build confidence in the NEE estimates at the European/monthly scales and in their theoretical uncertainty from the regional inverse modeling system. However, the uncertainties at the monthly (respectively annual) scale remain larger than the amplitude of the inter-annual variability of monthly (respectively annual) fluxes, so that there is a low confidence in the inter-annual variations. The uncertainties at the monthly scale are significantly smaller than the seasonal variations. The seasonal cycle of the inverted fluxes is thus reliable. In particular, the CO2 sink period over the European continent likely ends later than represented by the ecosystem model.

Description: In this study, we provide a comprehensive analysis of aerosol interaction with warm boundary layer clouds over the South-East Atlantic. We use aerosol and cloud parameters derived from MODIS observations, together with co-located CALIPSO estimates of the layer altitudes, to derive statistical relationships between aerosol concentration and cloud properties. The CALIPSO products are used to differentiate between cases of mixed cloud-aerosol layers from cases where the aerosol is located well-above the cloud top. This technique allows us to obtain more reliable estimates of the aerosol indirect effect than from simple relationships based on vertically integrated measurements of aerosol and cloud properties. Indeed, it permits us to somewhat distinguish the effects of aerosol and meteorology on the clouds, although it is not possible to fully ascertain the relative contribution of each on the derived statistics. Consistently with the results from previous studies, our statistics clearly show that aerosol affects cloud microphysics, decreasing the Cloud Droplet Radius (CDR). The same data indicate a concomitant strong decrease in cloud Liquid Water Path (LWP), which is inconsistent with the hypothesis of aerosol inhibition of precipitation (Albrecht, 1989). We hypothesise that the observed reduction in LWP is the consequence of dry air entrainment at cloud top. The combined effect of CDR decrease and LWP decrease leads to rather small sensitivity of the Cloud Optical Thickness (COT) to an increase in aerosol concentration. The analysis of MODIS-CALIPSO coincidences also evidences an aerosol enhancement of low cloud cover. Surprisingly, the Cloud Fraction (CLF) response to aerosol invigoration is much stronger when (absorbing) particles are located above cloud top than in cases of physical interaction. This result suggests a relevant aerosol radiative effect on low cloud occurrence: absorbing particles above the cloud top may heat the corresponding atmosphere layer, decrease the vertical temperature gradient, increase the low tropospheric stability and provide favourable conditions for low cloud formation. We also analyse the impact of anthropogenic aerosols on precipitation, through the statistical analysis of CDR-COT co-variations. A COT value of 10 is found to be the threshold beyond which precipitation is mostly formed, in both clean and polluted environments. For larger COT, polluted clouds show evidence of precipitation suppression. Results suggest the presence of two competing mechanisms governing LWP response to aerosol invigoration: a drying effect due to aerosol enhanced entrainment of dry air at cloud top (predominant for optically thin clouds) and a moistening effect due to aerosol inhibition of precipitation (predominant for optically thick clouds).

Description: This study presents the joint H216O and HDO retrieval from Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) spectra over the Western Siberia. IASI is an instrument on board the MetOp-A European satellite. The global coverage of the instrument and the good signal-to-noise ratio allow us to provide information on δ D over this remote region. We show that IASI measurements may be used to estimate integrated δ D between the surface and 3 km altitude or from 1 to 5 km depending on the thermal contrast, with observational errors lower than 4% and 8%, respectively. The retrieved data are compared to simulations from an isotopic GCM, LMDZ-iso over 2011. The satellite measurements reproduce well the seasonal and day-to-day variations for δ D, showing for the latter a good correlation with the model (r up to 0.8 with the smoothed data in summer). The IASI-based retrievals also show the seasonal variation of the specific humidity in both altitude ranges.