Vertical distribution of mesoscale heterogeneities in greenhouse gas concentrations over the south of Western Siberia
P.N. Antokhin, M.Yu. Arshinov, B.D. Belan, S.B. Belan, D.K. Davydov, G.A. Ivlev, A.V. Kozlov, O.O. Marchenko, T.M. Rasskazchikova, D.V. Simonenkov, T.K. Sklyadneva, G.N. Tolmachev, A.V. Fofonov
V.E. Zuev Institute of Atmospheric Optics of Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Science, Tomsk, Russia
Keywords: atmosphere, vertical distribution, carbon dioxide, concentration, mesoscale, methane, ozone, carbon monoxide, impurity transport, atmospheric composition
Abstract
Global warming, caused by the greenhouse effect, continues, and despite the extensive research into greenhouse gas concentrations in the Earth's atmosphere, estimates of their atmospheric budgets still remain uncertain at a level of 5-7%. To reduce this uncertainty, the present study investigates mesoscale inhomogeneities in gas components at different altitudes based on aircraft atmospheric sounding data. It is found that concentration differences for three gases, CH4, CO2, and CO, decrease with altitude. No such pattern was observed for ozone. These dependencies are shown to be stable over time. Concentration gradients are within the following ranges: 0.19-0.32 ppb/km for O3, 0.12-0.99 ppb/km for CH4, 0.02-0.17 ppm/km for CO2, 0.60-2.23 ppb/km for CO. The differences between the minimum and maximum altitudes are reduced by a factor of 4-9. The results of this study expand our understanding of greenhouse gas dynamics in the atmosphere at the mesoscale level and can be useful in developing requirements for both measurement accuracy and scaling of atmospheric greenhouse gas budget calculations.
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