The impact of transport model differences on CO₂ surface flux estimates from OCO-2 retrievals of column average CO₂

Abstract

Abstract. We estimate the uncertainty of CO2 flux estimates in atmospheric inversions stemming from differences between different global transport models. Using a set of observing system simulation experiments (OSSEs), we estimate this uncertainty as represented by the spread between five different state-of-the-art global transport models (ACTM, LMDZ, GEOS-Chem, PCTM and TM5), for both traditional in situ CO2 inversions and inversions of XCO2 estimates from the Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 (OCO-2). We find that, in the absence of relative biases between in situ CO2 and OCO-2 XCO2, OCO-2 estimates of terrestrial flux for TRANSCOM-scale land regions can be more robust to transport model differences than corresponding in situ CO2 inversions. This is due to a combination of the increased spatial coverage of OCO-2 samples and the total column nature of OCO-2 estimates. We separate the two effects by constructing hypothetical in situ networks with the coverage of OCO-2 but with only near-surface samples. We also find that the transport-driven uncertainty in fluxes is comparable between well-sampled northern temperate regions and poorly sampled tropical regions. Furthermore, we find that spatiotemporal differences in sampling, such as between OCO-2 land and ocean soundings, coupled with imperfect transport, can produce differences in flux estimates that are larger than flux uncertainties due to transport model differences. This highlights the need for sampling with as complete a spatial and temporal coverage as possible (e.g., using both land and ocean retrievals together for OCO-2) to minimize the impact of selective sampling. Finally, our annual and monthly estimates of transport-driven uncertainties can be used to evaluate the robustness of conclusions drawn from real OCO-2 and in situ CO2 inversions.