ALBERT

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 Los Angeles megacity, which is home to more than 40% of the population in California, is the second largest megacity in the United States and an intense source of anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs). Quantifying GHG emissions from the megacity and monitoring their spatiotemporal trends are essential to be able to understand the effectiveness of emission control policies. Here we measure carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) across the Los Angeles megacity using a novel approach – ground-based remote sensing from a mountaintop site. A Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS) with agile pointing optics, located on Mount Wilson at 1.67 km above sea level, measures reflected near infrared sunlight from 29 different surface targets on Mount Wilson and in the Los Angeles megacity to retrieve the slant column abundances of CO2, CH4 and other trace gases above and below Mount Wilson. This technique provides persistent space and time resolved observations of path-averaged dry-air GHG concentrations, XGHG, in the Los Angeles megacity and simulates observations from a geostationary satellite. In this study, we combined high sensitivity measurements from the FTS and the panorama from Mount Wilson to characterize anthropogenic CH4 emissions in the megacity using tracer : tracer correlations. During the period between September 2011 and October 2013, the observed XCH4 : XCO2 excess ratio, assigned to anthropogenic activities, varied from 5.4 to 7.3 ppb CH4 (ppm CO2)−1, with an average of 6.4 ± 0.5 ppb CH4 (ppm CO2)−1 compared to the value of 4.6 ± 0.9 ppb CH4 (ppm CO2)−1 expected from the California Air Resources Board (CARB) bottom-up emission inventory. Persistent elevated XCH4 : XCO2 excess ratios were observed in Pasadena and in the eastern Los Angeles megacity. Using the FTS observations on Mount Wilson and the bottom-up CO2 emission inventory, we derived a top-down CH4 emission of 0.39± 0.06 Tg CH4 year−1 in the Los Angeles megacity. This is 18–61% larger than the state government's bottom-up CH4 emission inventory and consistent with previous studies.

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 paper is addressed to scientists, policymakers, and funding agencies who need to have a global picture of the current state of the (diverse) carbon observations. We identify the current state of carbon observations, and the needs and notional requirements for a global integrated carbon observation system that can be built in the next decade. A key conclusion is the substantial expansion 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 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. In addition, uncertainties for each observation data-stream should be assessed. 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 interoperable, and on the calibration of each component of the system to agreed-upon international scales.