California Atmospheric CO2 and Fossil Fuel Contributions from 2014-2015 Campaigns

Three month-long campaigns in 2014-2015 collected atmospheric CO2 concentrations, carbon isotopes (d13C and D14C), and fossil fuel CO2 estimates from nine California observation sites. The dataset combines these measurements with simulated ffCO2 from the Vulcan v2.2 emissions inventory and WRF-STILT atmospheric transport model. This synthesis was used in a Bayesian inverse framework to estimate California's fossil fuel CO2 emissions during the study period.

Use Cases

• Validating regional atmospheric transport models like WRF-STILT using observed CO2 and isotope data.
• Constraining inverse estimates of fossil fuel CO2 emissions for California.
• Analyzing seasonal variability in atmospheric CO2 concentrations and fossil fuel contributions across nine sites.
• Comparing observed fossil fuel CO2 (ffCO2) with simulations driven by the Vulcan v2.2 emissions inventory.

Strengths

• Includes direct measurements of CO2 and the carbon isotopes d13C and D14C, which are critical for separating fossil fuel sources.
• Spatial coverage across nine distinct sites in California provides regional context.
• Temporal coverage includes three separate month-long campaigns across different seasons in 2014-2015.
• Data is integrated with a high-resolution modeling framework (WRF-STILT and Vulcan v2.2) for emission estimation.

Limitations

• The core fossil fuel emissions inventory (Vulcan v2.2) is for the year 2002, which may not reflect 2014-2015 emission patterns.
• Specific column names, row counts, and dataset size are not provided by any source platform.
• There is a conflict in the 'last updated' metadata, with dates ranging from 2015 to 2026 across platforms.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Atmospheric measurements from nine California sites combined with simulations using the Vulcan v2.2 emissions estimate and the WRF-STILT atmospheric model.

Time Range

2014-2015

Freshness

2026-03-13 04:11:47.453322

Geography

California, United States (nine observation sites)