Preprints
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3559
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3559
27 Nov 2024
 | 27 Nov 2024
Status: this preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Measurement Techniques (AMT).

Evaluating Weather and Chemical Transport Models at High Latitudes using MAGIC2021 Airborne Measurements

Félix Langot, Cyril Crevoisier, Thomas Lauvaux, Charbel Abdallah, Jérôme Pernin, Xin Lin, Marielle Saunois, Axel Guedj, Thomas Ponthieu, Anke Roiger, Klaus-Dirk Gottschaldt, and Alina Fiehn

Abstract. Methane (CH4) fluxes emitted by wetlands at high latitudes remain one of the largest sources of uncertainties in global methane budgets. At these latitudes, flux estimation approaches, such as atmospheric inversions, are impacted by improper characterisation of atmospheric transport due to challenging meteorological conditions and a lack of measurements. Here, we assess the performances of ERA5 reanalysis, mesoscale simulations from WRF-Chem, and various atmospheric transport models from several global and regional inversion systems using meteorological and CH4 in-situ measurements collected during the MAGIC2021 campaign near Kiruna, Sweden. Over six measurements days in August 2021, ERA5 exhibited better agreement with observations than WRF-Chem thanks to data assimilation. Nevertheless, WRF-Chem demonstrated proficiency in simulating local atmospheric dynamics. Among global simulations of atmospheric concentrations of CH4, inversion-optimised simulations of CH4 concentrations yielded the best performances, particularly near the surface, with CAMS v21r1 marginally outperforming PYVAR-LMDz-SACS ensemble inversions. WRF-Chem regional simulations revealed performance disparities among CH4 products, with positive biases in the boundary layer indicative of an overestimation of wetland emissions by selected wetland flux models. All transport models exhibited a vertically delayed gradient of CH4 mixing ratios near the tropopause, resulting in a positive bias in the stratosphere. The high vertical resolution of CAMS hlkx facilitated a better representation of the vertical structure of CH4 profiles in the stratosphere. Despite the limited spatiotemporal scope of MAGIC2021, we were able to identify the best performing transport models and to evaluate fluxes from different biogeochemical model parametrisations using the MAGIC2021 high-resolution dataset.

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Félix Langot, Cyril Crevoisier, Thomas Lauvaux, Charbel Abdallah, Jérôme Pernin, Xin Lin, Marielle Saunois, Axel Guedj, Thomas Ponthieu, Anke Roiger, Klaus-Dirk Gottschaldt, and Alina Fiehn

Status: open (until 18 Jan 2025)

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Félix Langot, Cyril Crevoisier, Thomas Lauvaux, Charbel Abdallah, Jérôme Pernin, Xin Lin, Marielle Saunois, Axel Guedj, Thomas Ponthieu, Anke Roiger, Klaus-Dirk Gottschaldt, and Alina Fiehn
Félix Langot, Cyril Crevoisier, Thomas Lauvaux, Charbel Abdallah, Jérôme Pernin, Xin Lin, Marielle Saunois, Axel Guedj, Thomas Ponthieu, Anke Roiger, Klaus-Dirk Gottschaldt, and Alina Fiehn

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Short summary
Our study compares outputs from meteorological and atmospheric composition models to data from the MAGIC2021 campaign that took place in Sweden. Our results highlight performance differences among models, revealing strengths and weaknesses of different modelling techniques. We also found that wetland emission inventories overestimated emissions in regional simulations. This work helps refining methane emission predictions, essential for understanding climate change.