Atmospheric CO2 mixing ratio fields

Besides the flux estimates, global atmospheric fields of CO₂ mixing ratios are provided for selected runs. Applications include

• use of the fields as boundary conditions in regional CO₂ modelling;
• assessment of CO₂ concentration properties at any given location.

The global spatio-temporal CO₂ mixing ratio fields have been calculated by forward simulation with the atmospheric tracer transport model TM3 driven with re-analysed meteorological data. Surface CO₂ fluxes supplied to the model are the inverse flux estimates, based on atmospheric observations and the same transport model. By construction, therefore, the atmospheric CO₂ mixing ratio fields optimally fit the measurements at the set of observation sites used, and provide an interpolation in between.