Abstract
The influence of the local terrestrial environment on nocturnal atmospheric CO2 measurements at a 329-m television transmitter tower (and a component of a CO2 monitoring network) was estimated with a tracer release experiment and a subsequent simulation of the releases. This was done to characterize the vertical transport of emissions from the surface to the uppermost tower level and how it is affected by atmospheric stability. The tracer release experiment was conducted over two nights in May of 2009 near the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina. Tracer was released on two contrasting nights—slightly stable and moderately stable—from several upwind surface locations. Measurements at the 329-m level on both nights indicate that tracer was able to mix vertically within a relatively short (∼24 km) distance, implying that nocturnal stable conditions do not necessarily prevent vertical dispersion in the boundary layer and that CO2 measurements at the tower are at least partly influenced by nearby emissions. A simulation of the tracer release is used to calculate the tower footprint on the two nights to estimate the degree to which the local domain affects the tower readings. The effect of the nocturnal boundary layer on the area sampled by the tower can be seen clearly, as the footprints were affected by changes in stability. The contribution of local sources to the measurements at the tower was minimal, however, suggesting that nocturnal concentrations at upper levels are contributed mostly by regional sources.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Andrews A, Kofler J, Trudeau M, Williams J, Neff D, Masarie K, Chao D, Kitzis D, Novelli P, Zhao C, Dlugokencky E, Lang P, Crotwell M, Fischer M, Parker M, Lee J, Baumann D, Desai A, Stanier C, de Wekker S, Wolfe D, Munger J, Tans P (2013) CO2, CO and CH4 measurements from the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory’s Tall Tower Greenhouse Gas Observing Network: instrumentation, uncertainty analysis and recommendations for future high-accuracy greenhouse gas monitoring efforts. Atmos Meas Techn 6:1461–1553
Barcza Z, Kern A, Haszpra L, Kljun N (2009) Spatial representativeness of tall tower eddy covariance measurements using remote sensing and footprint analysis. Agric For Meteorol 149:795–807
Barkhatov Y, Belolipetsky P, Degermendzhi A, Belolipetskii V, Verkhovets S, Timokhina A, Panov A, Shchemel A, Vedrova E, Trephilova O (2012) Modeling of CO2 fluxes between atmosphere and boreal forest. Procedia Environ Sci 13:621–625
Benjamin S, Dévényi D, Weygandt S, Brundage K, Brown J, Grell G, Kim D, Schwartz B, Smirnova T, Smith T, Manikin G (2004) An hourly assimilation–forecast cycle: the RUC. Mon Wea Rev 132:495–518
Birdsey R, Bates N, Behrenfeld M, Davis K, Doney S, Feely R, Hansell D, Heath L, Kasischke E, Khesghi H, Law B, Lee C, McGuire A, Raymond P, Tucker C (2009) Carbon cycle observations: gaps threaten climate mitigation policies. Eos 90(34):292–293
Chang J, Franzese P, Chayantrakom K, Hanna S (2003) Evaluations of CALPUFF, HPAC, and VLSTRACK with two mesoscale field datasets. J Appl Meteor 42:453–466
Chen B, Zhang H, Coops N, Fu D, Worthy D, Xu G, Black T (2013) Assessing scalar concentration footprint climatology and land surface impacts on tall-tower CO2 concentration measurements in the boreal forest of central Saskatchewan, Canada. Theor Appl Clim. doi:10.1007/s00704-013-1038-2
Clark T, Hall W (1991) Multi-domain simulations of the time dependent Navier-Stokes equations: benchmark error analysis of some nesting procedures. J Comput Phys 92:456–481
Cotton W, Tripoli G, Rauber R, Mulvihill E (1986) Numerical simulation of the effects of varying ice crystal nucleation rates and aggregation processes on orographic snowfall. J Clim Appl Meteorol 25:1658–1680
Desai A, Noormets A, Bolstad P, Chen J, Cook B, Davis K, Euskirchen E, Gough C, Martin J, Ricciuto D, Schmid H, Tang J, Wang W (2008) Influence of vegetation and seasonal forcing on carbon dioxide fluxes across the Upper Midwest, USA: implications for regional scaling. Agric For Meteorol 148:288–308
Draxler R, Hess G (1998) An overview of the HYSPLIT_4 modeling system of trajectories, dispersion, and deposition. Aust Meteorol Mag 47:295–308
Duarte H, Leclerc M, Zhang G, Durden D, Kurzeja R, Parker M, Werth D (2015) Impact of nocturnal low-level jets on near-surface turbulence kinetic energy. Bound-Layer Meteorol. doi:10.1007/s10546-015-0030-z
Gerbig C, Dolman A, Heimann M (2009) On observational and modelling strategies targeted at regional carbon exchange over continents. Biogeosciences 6:1949–1959. doi:10.5194/bg-6-1949-2009
Gloor M, Bakwin P, Hurst D, Lock L, Draxler R, Tans P (2001) What is the concentration footprint of a tall tower? J. Geophys Res 106:17831–17840
Gourdji S, Mueller K, Yadav V, Huntzinger D, Andrews A, Trudeau M, Petron G, Nehrkorn T, Eluszkiewicz J, Henderson J, Wen D, Lin J, Fischer M, Sweeney C, Michalak A (2012) North American CO2 exchange: inter-comparison of modeled estimates with results from a fine-scale atmospheric inversion. Biogeosciences 9:457–475. doi:10.5194/bg-9-457-2012
Harrington J (1997) The effects of radiative and microphysical processes on simulated warm transition season Arctic stratus, Dept. of Atmospheric Science Bluebook 637, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, 289 pp.
Hegarty J et al. (2013) Evaluation of Lagrangian particle dispersion models with measurements from controlled tracer releases. J Appl Meteorol Climatol 52:2623–2637. doi:10.1175/JAMC-D-13-0125.1
Hsieh C-I, Katul G, Chi T (2000) An approximate analytical model for footprint estimation of scalar fluxes in thermally stratified atmospheric flows. Adv Water Resour 23:765–772
Kuo H (1974) Further studies of the parameterization of the influence of cumulus convection on large-scale flow. J Atmos Sci 31:1232–1240
Leclerc M, Karipot A, Prabha T, Allwine G, Lamb B, Gholz H (2003a) Impact of non-local advection on flux footprints over a tall forest canopy: a tracer flux experiment. Agric For Meteorol 115:19–30
Leclerc M, Meskhidze N, Finn D (2003b) Comparison between measured tracer fluxes and footprint model predictions over a homogeneous canopy of intermediate roughness. Agric For Meteorol 117:145–158
Mellor G, Yamada T (1974) A hierarchy of closure models for planetary boundary layers. J Atmos Sci 31:1791–1806
Mesinger F, Arakawa A (1976) Numerical methods used in atmospheric models. GARP Publication Series, No. 14, WMO/ICSU Joint Organizing Committee, 64pp.
Mesinger F, DiMego G, Kalnay E, Shafran P, Ebisuzaki W, Jovic D, Woollen J, Mitchell K, Rogers E, Ek M, Fan Y, Grumbine R, Higgins W, Li H, Lin Y, Manikin G, Parrish D, Shi W (2004) North American Regional Reanalysis. 15th Symposium on Global Change and Climate Variations, paper P1.1, Combined Preprints CD-ROM, 84th AMS Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA. Updated 31 December 2003
Meyers M, DeMott P, Cotton W (1992) New primary ice nucleation parameterizations in an explicit cloud model. J Appl Meteorol 31:708–721
Pasquill F, Smith F (1983) Atmospheric diffusion. Wiley, NY
Perry S, Cimorelli A, Paine R, Brode R, Weil J, Venkatram A, Wilson R, Lee R, Peters W (2005) AERMOD: a dispersion model for industrial source applications. Part II: model performance against 17 field study databases. J Appl Meteorol 44:694–708
Peters W, Jacobson A, Sweeney C, Andrews A, Conway T, Masarie K, Miller J, Bruhwiler L, Pétron G, Hirsch A, Worthy D, van der Werf G, Randerson J, Wennberg P, Krol M, Tans P (2007) An atmospheric perspective on North American carbon dioxide exchange: CarbonTracker. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 104(48):18925–18930. doi:10.1073/pnas.0708986104
Peters W, Krol M, Dlugokencky E, Dentener F, Bergamaschi P, Dutton G, Velthoven P, Miller J, Bruhwiler L, Tans P (2004) Toward regional-scale modeling using the two-way nested global model TM5: characterization of transport using SF6. J Geophys Res 109:D19314. doi:10.1029/2004JD005020
Pielke R, Cotton W, Walko R, Tremback C, Lyons W, Grasso L, Nicholls M, Moran M, Wesley D, Lee T, Copeland J (1992) A comprehensive meteorological modeling system-RAMS. Meteorol Atmos Phys 49:69–91
Schmid H (2002) Footprint modeling for vegetation atmosphere exchange studies: a review and perspective. Agric For Meteorol 113:159–183
Smagorinsky J (1963) General circulation experiments with the primitive equations. Part I. The basic experiment. Mon Weather Rev 91:99–164
Sogachev A, Leclerc M (2011) On concentration footprints for a tall tower in the presence of a nocturnal low-level jet. Agric For Meteorol 151:755–764
Stephens B, Gurney K, Tans P, Sweeney C, Peters W, Bruhwiler L, Ciais P, Ramonet M, Bousquet P, Nakazawa T, Aoki S, Machida T, Inoue G, Vinnichenko N, Lloyd J, Jordan A, Heimann M, Shibistova O, Langenfelds R, Steele L, Francey R, Denning A (2007) Weak northern and strong tropical land carbon uptake from vertical profiles of atmospheric CO2. Science 316(5832):1732–1735. doi:10.1126/science.1137004
Stunder B, Heffter J, Draxler R (2007) Airborne volcanic ash forecast area reliability. Weather Forecast 22:1132–1139
van Dop H, Addis R, Fraser G, Girardi F, Graziani G, Inoue Y, Kelly N, Klug W, Kulmala A, Nodop K, Pretel J (1998) ETEX: a European tracer experiment; observations, dispersion modelling and emergency response. Atmos Environ 32:4089–4094
Walko R, Band L, Baron J, Kittel T, Lammers R, Lee T, Ojima D, Pielke R, Taylor C, Tague C, Tremback C, Vidale P (2000) Coupled atmosphere–biophysics–hydrology models for environmental modeling. J Appl Meteorol 39:931–944
Wang W, Davis K, Cook B, Yi C, Butler M, Ricciuto D, Bakwin P (2007) Estimating daytime CO2 fluxes over a mixed forest from tall tower mixing ratio measurements. J Geophys Res V112, 2006JD007770
Werth D, Kurzeja R, Luís Dias N, Zhang G, Duarte H, Fischer M, Parker M, Leclerc M (2011) The simulation of the southern great plains nocturnal boundary layer and the low-level jet with a high-resolution mesoscale atmospheric model. J Appl Meteorol Climatol 50:1497–1513
Acknowledgments
This document was prepared by members of the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) in conjunction with work accomplished under Contract No. DE-AC09-08SR22470 with the U.S. Department of Energy. Funding support was provided to SRNL, the University of Georgia and Brookhaven National Laboratory by the DOE Office of Science – Terrestrial Carbon Processes program.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Disclaimer
This work was prepared under an agreement with and funded by the U.S. Government. Neither the U. S. Government or its employees, nor any of its contractors, subcontractors or their employees, makes any express or implied: 1. warranty or assumes any legal liability for the accuracy, completeness, or for the use or results of such use of any information, product, or process disclosed; or 2. representation that such use or results of such use would not infringe privately owned rights; or 3. endorsement or recommendation of any specifically identified commercial product, process, or service. Any views and opinions of authors expressed in this work do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government, or its contractors, or subcontractors.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Werth, D., Buckley, R., Zhang, G. et al. Quantifying the local influence at a tall tower site in nocturnal conditions. Theor Appl Climatol 127, 627–642 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-015-1648-y
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-015-1648-y