Speaker: Dr. Kenneth J. Davis (Professor of Meteorology)
Topic: "Atmospheric Carbon and Transport – America: An Earth Venture mission dedicated to improving the accuracy, precision and resolution of atmospheric inverse estimates of CO2 and CH4 sources and sinks"
Room: 529 Walker Building
Time: Thur Apr 23, 2015 03:30pm to 04:30pm
Abstract: The Atmospheric Carbon and Transport-America (ACT-America) mission is a newly selected, $30 million, 5-year, NASA-funded airborne field campaign. The project will enable and demonstrate a new generation of atmospheric inversion systems for quantifying CO2 and CH4 sources and sinks at regional scales. These inversion systems will be able to 1) evaluate and improve terrestrial carbon cycle models, and 2) monitor carbon fluxes to support climate-change mitigation efforts. The overarching goal described above will be achieved via three mission goals: 1) quantify and reduce atmospheric transport uncertainties; 2) improve regional-scale estimates of CO2 and CH4 fluxes; and 3) evaluate the sensitivity of Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) column CO2 measurements to regional variability in tropospheric CO2. This talk with provide an overview of the mission, the proposed methods, and some of the model-data synthesis challenges that we expect to face.