Comparison of Global XCO2 Concentrations From OCO-2 With TCCON Data in Terms of Latitude Zones

Abstract

This work evaluated the performance of the orbiting carbon observatory 2 (OCO-2) in terms of global atmospheric CO 2 observations for 20 months (September 2014 to April 2016). Three versions of data on CO2 are currently available, namely, version 7, version 7r, and Lite File Product (Lite_FP). For the first time, we evaluated X CO2 measurements from three versions of OCO-2 in terms of utilization efficiency, spatiotemporal coverage, and measurement accuracy compared with data (GGG2014) from the total carbon column observing network (TCCON). In data application, Lite_FP usually displayed the most efficient data volume and relatively stable spatial coverage, i.e., 42% in global scale. In addition, the spatial coverage of X CO2 measurements on land and ocean displayed opposite periodic seasonal fluctuations. However, no data were obtained in some areas where research on carbon ecology is highly significant. In terms of measurement accuracy, we considered the latitude distribution of TCCON sites and performed a site-by-site comparison at different latitude zones between X CO2 from three versions of OCO-2 and TCCON. Results demonstrated that the periodic variation trend of X CO2 from OCO-2 was consistent with that from TCCON. Moreover, the amplitude was similar to that of TCCON except that several sites had significant seasonal variation amplitude. The mean bias of OCO-2 was generally < 0.8 ppm, with 0.55% deviation. Among the three versions of OCO-2, Lite_FP showed good result in filtering and bias correction in the mid-low latitudes but still needs improvement in the high latitudes of the Northern and the Southern Hemispheres.