A study of seasonal and yearly modulation of carbon dioxide sources and sinks, with a particular attention to the Boreal Atlantic Ocean

With the intention of identifying and monitoring space and time patterns of carbon dioxide sources and sinks, the seasonal fields of atmospheric CO2 concentration over an area covering Europe, the Boreal Atlantic, and North Africa have been computed by using CO2 observations measured at one or two remote sites in conjunction with the backward air trajectories crossing the same observation sites. The air trajectories have been calculated by means of the wind speed fields provided by the ECMWF (European Centre of Medium-range Weather Forecast, of Reading, UK) analyses (T213/L31 model) on a regular grid, while the atmospheric CO2 concentrations have been measured at two alpine European stations, located in the free atmosphere, far from the influence of local industrial pollution. A modified version of the statistical receptor-to-source-oriented-model (hereafter, source-oriented model) of Stohl (Atmos. Environ. 30 (1998) 947), using the above-mentioned air trajectories, has then been applied to reconstruct the spatial distribution fields of atmospheric CO2. This source-oriented methodology belongs to a family of models which are simpler and easier to use than the more powerful and widespread inverse models and can allow a reliable deduction of the location of sources and sinks of gas tracers. We have applied this kind of model in order to identify source and sink macro-regions of CO2 over the above-mentioned area in the period 1993-1998. The CO2 observing stations of Plateau Rosa (3480m a.s.l., in the western Alps) and Zugspitze (2937 m, in the eastern Alps) have been considered particularly fit for this purpose, because of their location in high orography areas, allowing to monitor values of atmospheric CO2 concentrations representative of fairly well-mixed air, not affected by some local influences (industries, urban emissions, etc.). In this way, it can be assumed that possible maxima or minima observed in the trend of measured gas concentration can be due to contaminations of the air mass during its whole travel, at some specific locations identified by the source-oriented model. The most interesting result obtained in this study is the seasonal cycle of the atmospheric CO2 concentration found over the mid- and sub-tropical latitudes of the Boreal Atlantic Ocean and evident in all simulations. This cycle appears to be clearly related to the seasonal trend of the SST, particularly in the tropical and subtropical Atlantic regions, and is particularly evident during the warmest months (during Spring, Autumn and particularly in Summer). (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.