CHE's Animation of Global CO2 Variability

As a member of the User Advisory Board SCARBO is closely linked to the CO2 Human Emissions (CHE) coordination and support action, which aims to bring together European expertise and a consolidated approach to build an operational anthropogenic CO2­ emission monitoring support capacity.

In support of this objective CHE has released the CHE Tier 1 CO2 Global Nature Run. To showcase the Global Nature Run ECMWF has created an animation showing CO2 variability with respect to the global annual mean of 399ppm. The animation highlights the fast transport associated with weather systems, as well as the slower changes between the hemispheres following the seasonal cycle and the annual growth rate of the biogenic and anthropogenic fluxes of CO2 at the Earth’s surface.

The CHE Tier 1 CO2­ Global Nature Run is a free-running tracer simulation with a state-of-the-art integrated forecast system model based on the operational CAMS high-resolution global CO2 forecasting system. The CAMS system enables the rapid generation of boundary conditions for the regional simulations of the CHE project.

This simulation is part of a library produced by the CHE project to support the design of an anthropogenic CO2 monitoring and verification support capacity as outlined in the EC CO2 report. The data driving the CHE Tier 1 CO2­ Global Nature Run is freely and openly accessible to any interested user and contains information on vertical profiles and total column averages of atmospheric carbon tracers such as CO2, CH4 and CO at a resolution of 9km. The main meteorological parameters associated with the transport of these tracers in the atmosphere are also available and the complete list can be found here.  

Check out the animation here