Estimation of the atmospheric greenhouse gas spatial distribution in the Arctic using a back trajectory model

• Published in: Mathematical Methods in the Applied Sciences
• Main Authors: Poddubny, Vassily, Nagovitsyna, Ekaterina, Antonov, Konstantin, Markelov, Jury, Buevich, Alexander, Omelkova, Elena, Manzhurov, Igor, Medvedev, Alexander, Vasilyeva, Julia
• Other Authors: Russian Foundation for Basic Research, Ural Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2019
• Subjects: Arctic; Kara Sea
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/mma.6046; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/mma.6046; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full-xml/10.1002/mma.6046

We present a method and results of the retrieval of average effective fields of atmospheric impurity concentration using a passive wind sensing (remote sensing) numeric technology referred to as Fluid Location of the Atmosphere (FLA). The quasi‐two‐dimensional problem of reconstruction of the spatial distribution of the greenhouse gases assuming the diffusion Peclet number infinitely large was solved numerically. The study is based on in‐situ measurements of the atmospheric methane and carbon dioxide during the expeditions to Belyy Island in the Kara Sea in July and August of 2016 to 2017. The differences and common features of CH 4 and CO 2 spatial distribution in this region of the Arctic during specified periods were analyzed. CH 4 concentrations tended to decrease with moving from the continent to the remote sea areas. For CO 2 on the contrary, lower values were observed over the continent, and they increased with a distance from the coastline. For both greenhouse gases, average atmospheric concentrations increased in 2017 relative to 2016.