Detecting regional variability in sources and sinks of carbon dioxide: a synthesis

Abstract

Abstract. The papers of this special issue are put into the context of progress made in experiments and modelling aimed at understanding the carbon balance at regional scale. Mesoscale meteorological effects such as seas breezes and topographically induced flow have the potential to generate significant heterogeneities in the CO2 concentration fields. This has consequences for the interpretation or inverse modelling, of sources and sinks from these concentrations. Results of experiments executed in South West France in 2005 and 2007 are described and subsequent analysis of modelling results. Overall we conclude that we now have capability to model with mesoscale models realistic CO2 concentration fields, within the constraint of other model errors, such as in boundary layer characteristics. We show that progress has been made in inverting concentration field at regional scale and indicate the direction of future research efforts.