Atmospheric Results from the NACPs Mid Continent Intensive Field Campaign

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Atmospheric Results from the NACPs Mid Continent
Intensive Field Campaign
Natasha Miles, Scott Richardson, Arlyn Andrews,
Kathy Corbin, Kenneth Davis, Liza Diaz, Scott
Denning, Erandi Lokupitiya, Douglas Martins, Paul
Shepson, Colm Sweeney, and Tris West ICDC8
September 2009
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Atmospheric results from the NACPsMid
Continental Intensive

• Overall goal of Mid-Continental Intensive Seek
  convergence between top-down and bottom-up
  estimates of the regional flux
• Oversample the atmosphere in the study region
• Atmospheric results
• Purdue Univ / NOAA ALAR (aircraft) Campaign
• NOAA aircraft program
• 9 tower sites (NOAA, PSU, U of Minn)
• NOAA Carbon Tracker
• CSU SiBcrop-RAMS model
• Comparisons to agricultural and satellite data

Rosemount
LEF
500 km
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NOAA / Purdue University ALAR
Regional Survey 15 25 June 2007
Colm Sweeney (NOAA/ESRL) Paul Shepson (Purdue
University) Doug Martins (Purdue University)
385 ppm
Front
365 ppm
17 June 2007
15 June 2007
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NOAA / Purdue University ALAR
Lagrangian Flux Estimates 19 June 2007
Tower-based eddy covariance fluxes from the
Brooks Field Site near Ames, IA
Flux tower soybeans
Flight Path
Flux tower corn
Regionally-averaged aircraft CO2 flux
Flux -10.32.4 µmol/m2/s
In-situ Profiles
Martins et al., 2009
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NOAA Aircraft Program CO2 Measurements
8000
8000
8000
8000

• Climatology of 12 of 16 currently running NOAA
  aircraft project sites
• 2 3 profiles / month at each site
• Increase in amplitude of the seasonal cycle from
  west to east

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CO2 (ppm)
Altitude (m)
4000
4000
4000
4000
0
200
200
200
200
-15
8000
8000
0
6
12
0
6
12
0
6
12
0
6
12
18
CO2 (ppm)
Altitude (m)
4000
4000
0
200
200
-15
8000
8000
0
6
12
0
6
12
18
CO2 (ppm)
Altitude (m)
4000
4000
0
200
200
-15
8000
8000
8000
8000
0
6
12
0
6
12
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CO2 (ppm)
Altitude (m)
4000
4000
4000
4000
0
200
200
200
200
-15
0
6
12
0
6
12
0
6
12
0
6
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C. Sweeney (NOAA)
Deviation from global mean CO2
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NOAA tall towers in MCI region

• Non-dispersive infrared spectroscopy (LiCor,
  Inc.) instruments
• LEF (1994 current)
• WBI (July 2007 current)

PSU Ring 2 towers

• Network of 5 cavity ring-down spectroscopy
  (Picarro, Inc.) instruments surrounding Iowa
  (April 2007 October 2009)
• Centerville, IA
• Galesville, WI
• Kewanee, IL
• Mead, NE
• Round Lake, MN
• Additional well-calibrated site on Ameriflux
  tower at Missouri Ozarks, MO

Rosemount
LEF
U. Of Minn Rosemount tower

• Tunable diode laser instrument
• May 2007 current

data courtesy of T. Griffis
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Spatial differences / gradients during 2007
growing season on a daily time scale

• Large differences / gradients for some site pairs
• West Branch - Centerville

Difference
Gradient
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Spatial differences / gradients during growing
season on a daily time scale

• Large differences / gradients for some site pairs
• West Branch - Centerville (160 km)
• Other site pairs lower differences / gradients
• Mead Centerville (300 km)
• Median differences 6.0 and 1.7 ppm
• Median gradients 0.04 and 0.006 ppm/km

Difference
Gradient
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Seasonal cycle

• Large variance in seasonal drawdown, despite
  being separated by 500 km
• 2 groups 33 39 ppm drawdown and 24 29 ppm
  drawdown (difference of about 10 ppm)

Mauna Loa wbi aircraft
NOAA (Andrews/Sweeney) U of Minn (Griffis)
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Seasonal cycle

• Large variance in seasonal drawdown, despite
  being separated by 500 km
• 2 groups 33 39 ppm drawdown and 24 29 ppm
  drawdown (difference of about 10 ppm)

Mauna Loa wbi aircraft
NOAA (Andrews/Sweeney) U of Minn (Griffis)
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Seasonal cycle

• Large variance in seasonal drawdown, despite
  being separated by 500 km
• 2 groups 33 39 ppm drawdown and 24 29 ppm
  drawdown (difference of about 10 ppm)

Mauna Loa wbi aircraft
NOAA (Andrews/Sweeney) U of Minn (Griffis)
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Corn NPP in the Mid Continental Intensive region
2007
T. West
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Corn NPP in the Mid Continental Intensive region
2007
Sites with larger seasonal CO2 drawdown -
Consistent with Corn belt according to NPP
T. West
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Model-data comparisons (forwards results)

• SiBcrop-RAMS (K. Corbin A. Schuh E. Lokupitiya
  A.S. Denning)
• June-August 2007
• Regional
• Coupled with crop phenology model for corn and
  soybean developed by Lokupitiya et al. (2009)
  wheat to be added

• NOAA-ESRL Carbon Tracker (A. Andrews A.
  Jacobson)
• 2007
• Global
• Optimized to best fit data on global obs network
  (not including Ring 2)

wheat
corn
http//carbontracker.noaa.gov
soy
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Observations vs Carbon Tracker 2007

• Overall drawdown in CT 2008 is too weak
• But some features of modeled variability are
  consistent with obs- large variability- mm has
  less drawdown than wbi, rl, and kw in both model
  and obs

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Observations vs Carbon Tracker 2007
Obs - model (ppm)
2007

• Suggestive that CT model could be improved by
  adding crop details
• Trajectory analysis LEF residuals large for
  southerly trajectories, small for northerly
  trajectories

Corn belt sites
Liza Diaz (PSU)
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Observations vs SiBcrop-RAMS 2007 growing season
growing season

• Overall drawdown compares well
• Problems with spatial distribution

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Observations vs SiBcrop-RAMS 2007 growing season
Obs model (ppm)

• Problems with spatial distribution
• Corn belt sites not enough drawdown
• Centerville, LEF too much drawdown
• Using more realistic percentages for land
  cover, especially for corn, may improve results

Corn belt sites
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Seasonal cycle interannual variability

• West Branch (wbi) and Centerville (ce) differ
  significantly from 2007 to 2008
• From agricultural statistics (NASS), total
  estimated NPP of corn (T. West) 222 PgC
  for 2007 207 PgC for 2008

Mauna Loa wbi aircraft
NOAA (Andrews/Sweeney) U of Minn (Griffis)
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Flooding in the Midwestern U.S. June 2008
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Delay in seasonal drawdown
2008

• 2008 CO2 minima is delayed by 2 4 weeks,
  compared to 2007
• Effect of flood?

2007
2007 solid 2008 dashed
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Satellite-based Normalized Difference Vegetation
Index (NDVI) for Iowa crops
T. West
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Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) for
Iowa crops

• Satellite-based 2-week delay of phenological
  curve for 2008 compared to 2007, for both corn
  and soy

T. West
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Summary

• Aircraft and tower results both indicate large
  spatial gradients between sites despite
  relatively small site separations
• Seasonal cycle
• Difference amongst sites, some with very large
  seasonal drawdown
• Comparisons of tower obs to CarbonTracker and
  SiBcrop-RAMS
• Important to model agriculture correctly
• Transport important also
• Interannual variability flooding in June 2008,
  atmospheric data corroborated by satellite and
  agricultural statistics data
• What spatial density of tower measurements is
  necessary? To be answered by including subsets
  of the Ring 2 data in the inversions

Natasha Miles Penn State University nmiles_at_met.psu
.edu