Identification

Title

Toward reliable ensemble Kalman filter estimates of CO₂ fluxes

Abstract

The use of ensemble filters for estimating sources and sinks of carbon dioxide (CO₂) is becoming increasingly common, because they provide a relatively computationally efficient framework for assimilating high-density observations of CO₂. Their applicability for estimating fluxes at high-resolutions and the equivalence of their estimates to those from more traditional "batch" inversion methods have not been demonstrated, however. In this study, we introduce a Geostatistical Ensemble Square Root Filter (GEnSRF) as a prototypical filter and examine its performance using a synthetic data study over North America at a high spatial (1° × 1°) and temporal (3-hourly) resolution. The ensemble performance, both in terms of estimates and associated uncertainties, is benchmarked against a batch inverse modeling setup in order to isolate and quantify the degradation in the estimates due to the numerical approximations and parameter choices in the ensemble filter. The examined case studies demonstrate that adopting state-of-the-art covariance inflation and localization schemes is a necessary but not sufficient condition for ensuring good filter performance, as defined by its ability to yield reliable flux estimates and uncertainties across a range of resolutions. Observational density is found to be another critical factor for stabilizing the ensemble performance, which is attributed to the lack of a dynamical model for evolving the ensemble between assimilation times. This and other results point to key differences between the applicability of ensemble approaches to carbon cycle science relative to its use in meteorological applications where these tools were originally developed.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d73x87jg

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2012-11-27T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact