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Comparison of CO2 Content in the Atmosphere of St. Petersburg According to Numerical Modeling and Observations

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Abstract

Due to the increase in CO2 content in the earth’s atmosphere, which is highly dependent on anthropogenic emissions of CO2, the quality of emission estimation should be improved. Advanced experiment-based methods of the CO2 anthropogenic emission estimation are built on solving an inverse problem using highly accurate measurements of CO2 content and numerical models of transport and chemistry in the atmosphere. The accuracy of such models greatly determines the errors of the emission estimations. In the current study, temporal variations of column-average CO2 content in an atmospheric layer from the surface to a height of ~70–75 km (XCO2) in the Russian metropolis of St. Petersburg from January 2019 to March 2020 simulated by the WRF-Chem model and measured by a Bruker EM27/SUN IR Fourier transform spectrometer are compared. The research has demonstrated that the WRF-Chem model simulates the observed temporal variation of XCO2 in the area of St. Petersburg well (correlation coefficient of ~0.95). However, using CarbonTracker v2022-1 data as chemical boundary conditions, the model overestimates XCO2 relative to the observations significantly during almost the entire period of investigation—systematic difference and standard deviation of the difference are 4.2 and 1.9 ppm (1 and 0.5%). A correction of the chemical boundary conditions which is based on an analysis of a relation between near-surface wind direction and XCO2 variation notably decreases the systematic difference between the modeled and observed data (almost by a factor of 2). The XCO2 variation by the observations and modeling with uncorrected chemical boundary conditions are in a better agreement during vegetation season. This is probably related to the compensation of the systematic difference by inaccuracies in estimated biogenic contribution. Hence, the reason for the still existing mean difference between the modeled and observed data can be inaccuracies in setting chemical boundary conditions for the upper troposphere and in estimating how the biosphere influences CO2 content.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank our colleagues from the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry (Jena, Germany) for help in running the VPRM model. We thank Frank Hase, Thomas Blumenstock, and Carlos Alberti from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Karlsruhe, Germany) for providing the Bruker EM27/SUN meter and assisting with the total CO2 measurements in Peterhof. We also thank the NOAA ESRL science team for free access to CarbonTracker data.

Funding

This work, Study of the Ozone Layer and Upper Atmosphere laboratory of St. Petersburg State University, was supported by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, agreement no. 075-15-2021-583.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Saint Petersburg State University, 199034, St. Petersburg, Russia

    G. M. Nerobelov, Yu. M. Timofeyev, S. Ch. Foka & H. H. Imhasin

  2. Scientific Research Center for Ecological Safety, Russian Academy of Sciences, 187110, St. Petersburg, Russia

    G. M. Nerobelov

  3. Russian State Hydrometeorological University, 195196, St. Petersburg, Russia

    S. P. Smyshlyaev

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  1. G. M. Nerobelov
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Nerobelov, G.M., Timofeyev, Y.M., Smyshlyaev, S.P. et al. Comparison of CO2 Content in the Atmosphere of St. Petersburg According to Numerical Modeling and Observations. Izv. Atmos. Ocean. Phys. 59, 275–286 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0001433823020056

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