Abstract
Abstract. In the present study, seasonal and inter-annual variability of atmospheric CO2 concentration over India and surrounding oceans during 2002–2010 derived from Atmospheric InfrarRed Sounder observation and their relation with the natural flux exchanges over terrestrial Indian and surrounding oceans were analyzed. The natural fluxes over the terrestrial Indian in the form of net primary productivity (NPP) were simulated based on a terrestrial biosphere model governed by time varying climate parameters (solar radiation, air temperature, precipitation etc) and satellite greenness index together with the land use land cover and soil attribute maps. The flux exchanges over the oceans around India (Tropical Indian Ocean: TIO) were calculated based on a empirical model of CO2 gas dissolution in the oceanic water governed by time varying upper ocean parameters such as gradient of partial pressure of CO2 between ocean and atmosphere, winds, sea surface temperature and salinity. Comparison between the variability of atmospheric CO2 anomaly with the anomaly of surface fluxes over India and surrounding oceans suggests that biosphere uptake over India and oceanic uptake over the south Indian Ocean could play positive role on the control of seasonal variability of atmospheric carbon dioxide growth rate. On inter-annual scale, flux exchanges over the tropical north Indian Ocean could play positive role on the control of atmospheric carbon dioxide growth rate.
Highlights
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a major greenhouse gas in the atmosphere and plays a significant role in warming the earth by radiative forcing through entrapment of outgoing long-wave radiations from the earth to the space
The CO2 flux exchanges over the north Indian Ocean during past 6 years (2003-2008) in monthly scale were estimated using wind speed data based on monthly NASA QuikSCAT observations, optimal interpolated SST (Reynolds et al, 2002), Simple Ocean Data Assimilation SSS (Carton et al, 2005) and monthly climatological data of partial pressure difference between ocean and atmosphere: pCO2w - pCO2a
The small values of CO2 band over the south Indian Ocean remain prominent in this period which could be due to increasing strength of oceanic CO2 uptake
Summary
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a major greenhouse gas in the atmosphere and plays a significant role in warming the earth by radiative forcing through entrapment of outgoing long-wave radiations from the earth to the space. Simulation studies under different scenarios of atmospheric CO2 concentration suggest that in the coming century, global average temperature may increase in the range of 2 – 4.5 oC (IPCC report 2007). Global ocean is the major sink of atmospheric CO2. The global terrestrial biosphere is the second major natural sink of atmospheric CO2 at the present time (House et al, 2003). AIRS is a new generation space-born Infra-Red (IR) sounder launched into Earth-orbit along with Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU-A) on May 4, 2002 by the Aqua satellite under the NASA Earth Observation Program with an intent of extracting valuable information about tropospheric variations of carbonaceous trace gases. 7 years monthly data of mid-troposphere CO2 during 2002-2010 derived from AIRS observations are used to analyze its spatial and temporal variability in association to its control by surface fluxes over the Indian subcontinent and surrounding oceans
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