Atmospheric 14CO2 Constraints on and Modeling of Net Carbon Fluxes 06-ERD-031 An LLNL Exploratory Research in the Directorate's Final Report

Abstract

A critical scientific question is: 'what are the present day sources and sinks of carbon dioxide (CO{sub 2}) in the natural environment, and how will these sinks evolve under rising CO{sub 2} concentrations and expected climate change and ecosystem response'? Sources and sinks of carbon dioxide impart their signature on the distribution, concentration, and isotopic composition of CO{sub 2}. Spatial and temporal trends (variability) provide information on the net surface (atmosphere to ocean, atmosphere to terrestrial biosphere) fluxes. The need to establish more reliable estimates of sources and sinks of CO{sub 2} has lead to an expansion of CO{sub 2} measurement programs over the past decade and the development of new methodologies for tracing carbon flows. These methodologies include high-precision pCO{sub 2}, {delta}{sup 13}CO{sub 2}, and [O{sub 2}/N{sub 2}] measurements on atmospheric constituents that, when combined, have allowed estimates of the net terrestrial and oceanic fluxes at decadal timescales. Major gaps in our understanding remain however, and resulting flux estimates have large errors and are comparatively unconstrained. One potentially powerful approach to tracking carbon flows is based on observations of the {sup 14}C/{sup 12}C ratio of atmospheric CO{sub 2}. This ratio can be used to explicitly distinguish fossil-fuel CO{sub 2}more » from other sources of CO{sub 2} and also provide constraints on the mass and turnover times of carbon in land ecosystems and on exchange rates of CO{sub 2} between air and sea. Here we demonstrated measurement of {sup 14}C/{sup 12}C ratios at 1-2{per_thousand} on archived and currently collected air samples. In parallel we utilized the LLNL-IMPACT global atmospheric chemistry transport model and the TransCom inversion algorithm to utilize these data in inversion estimates of carbon fluxes. This project has laid the foundation for a more expanded effort in the future, involving collaborations with other air-sampling programs and modeling groups.« less