An Approach to Estimate Atmospheric Greenhouse Gas Total Columns Mole Fraction from Partial Column Sampling
This paper presents a new conceptual approach to estimate total column mole fractions of CO 2 and CH 4 using partial column data. It provides a link between airborne in situ and remote sensing observations of greenhouse gases. The method relies on in situ observations, external ancillary sources of information (e.g., atmospheric transport models), and a regression kriging framework. We evaluate our new approach using National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA's) AirCore program-in situ vertical profiles of CO 2 and CH 4 collected from weather balloons. Our paper shows that under the specific conditions of this study and assumption of unbiasedness, airborne observations up to 6500-9500maltitude are required to achieve comparable total column CO 2 mole fraction uncertainty as the Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON) network provides, given as a precision of the ratio between observed and true total column-integrated mole fraction, assuming 400 ppm XCO 2 (2σ, e.g., 0.8 ppm). If properly calibrated, our approach could be applied to vertical profiles of CO 2 collected from aircraft using a few flask samples, while retaining similar uncertainty level. Our total column CH 4 estimates, by contrast, are less accurate than TCCON's. Aircrafts are not as spatially constrained as TCCON ground stations, so our approach adds value to aircraft-based vertical profiles for evaluating remote sensing platforms.