Influence of the Underlying Surface on Greenhouse Gas Concentrations in the Atmosphere Over Central Siberia

Abstract

A crucial issue in atmospheric studies on greenhouse gas content involves assessing the representativeness (footprint) having influence on their concentrations measured by tall towers. In this study, the Stochastic Time-Inverted Lagrangian Transport (STILT) model was used to estimate seasonal cumulative footprint climatology for greenhouse gases measurements obtained on the 301-meter-high Zotino Tall Tower Observation Facility (ZOTTO) for the growing seasons (May-September) from 2008 to 2012 (with the exception of 2011). Results showed that the ZOTTO seasonal concentration cumulative footprint climatology for four years reached 6.9×10⁶ km² and the 75% cumulative footprints varied from 1.9 to 2.3×10⁶ km². For the same period, the Russian Land Cover map based on MODIS data for 2014 was used to estimate the impact of land cover surrounding the ZOTTO tower on concentration measurements. The analysis showed that in the 75% seasonal cumulative footprint the largest area is occupied by bogs, followed (in decreasing order) by larch, mixed, light-coniferous evergreen forests, grassland, and by other classes. Furthermore, analysis of the contributions from individual cells making up a footprint showed that the largest influence on formation of greenhouse gas concentrations as recorded by ZOTTO comes from the types of vegetation growing in the immediate vicinity of the tall tower, namely bogs, mixed forests, and light and dark coniferous forest stands.