Joint application of concentration and δ¹⁸O to investigate the global atmospheric CO budget

Most previous top-down global carbon monoxide (CO) budget estimates have used only concentration information and shown large differences in individual source estimates. Since CO from certain sources has a specific isotopic signature, coupling the concentration and isotope fraction information can provide a better constraint on CO source strength estimates. We simulate both CO concentration and its oxygen isotopologue C¹⁸O in the 3-D global chemical transport model MOZART-4 and compare the results with observations. We then used a Bayesian inversion to calculate the most probable global CO budget. In the analysis, δ¹⁸O information is jointly applied with concentration. The joint inversion results should provide more accurate and precise inversion results in comparison with CO-only inversion. Various methods combining the concentration and isotope ratios were tested to maximize the benefit of including isotope information. The joint inversion of CO and δ¹⁸O estimated total global CO production at 2951 Tg-CO/yr in 1997, 3084 Tg-CO/yr in 1998, and 2583 Tg-CO/yr in 2004. The updated CO budget improved both the modeled CO and δ¹⁸O. The clear improvement shown in the δ¹⁸O implies that more accurate source strengths are estimated. Thus, we confirmed that the observation of CO isotopes provide further substantial information for estimating a global CO budget.

To Access Resource:

Questions? Email Resource Support Contact:

  • opensky@ucar.edu
    UCAR/NCAR - Library

Resource Type publication
Temporal Range Begin N/A
Temporal Range End N/A
Temporal Resolution N/A
Bounding Box North Lat N/A
Bounding Box South Lat N/A
Bounding Box West Long N/A
Bounding Box East Long N/A
Spatial Representation N/A
Spatial Resolution N/A
Related Links N/A
Additional Information N/A
Resource Format PDF
Standardized Resource Format PDF
Asset Size N/A
Legal Constraints

Copyright Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Access Constraints None
Software Implementation Language N/A

Resource Support Name N/A
Resource Support Email opensky@ucar.edu
Resource Support Organization UCAR/NCAR - Library
Distributor N/A
Metadata Contact Name N/A
Metadata Contact Email opensky@ucar.edu
Metadata Contact Organization UCAR/NCAR - Library

Author Park, K.
Emmons, Louisa K.
Wang, Z.
Mak, J.
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2015-04-27T00:00:00
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Not Assigned
Alternate Identifier N/A
Resource Version N/A
Topic Category geoscientificInformation
Progress N/A
Metadata Date 2025-07-12T00:00:31.058554
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:16585
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Park, K., Emmons, Louisa K., Wang, Z., Mak, J.. (2015). Joint application of concentration and δ¹⁸O to investigate the global atmospheric CO budget. UCAR/NCAR - Library. https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7mp54gf. Accessed 31 July 2025.

Harvest Source