The Berkeley Environmental Air-quality and CO₂ Network: field calibrations of sensor temperature dependence and assessment of network scale CO₂ accuracy

Abstract

Abstract. The majority of global anthropogenic CO2 emissions originate in cities. We have proposed that dense networks are a strategy for tracking changes to the processes contributing to urban CO2 emissions and suggested that a network with ∼ 2 km measurement spacing and ∼ 1 ppm node-to-node precision would be effective at constraining point, line, and area sources within cities. Here, we report on an assessment of the accuracy of the Berkeley Environmental Air-quality and CO2 Network (BEACO2N) CO2 measurements over several years of deployment. We describe a new procedure for improving network accuracy that accounts for and corrects the temperature-dependent zero offset of the Vaisala CarboCap GMP343 CO2 sensors used. With this correction we show that a total error of 1.6 ppm or less can be achieved for networks that have a calibrated reference location and 3.6 ppm for networks without a calibrated reference.