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Preprints
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-341
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-341
14 Mar 2025
 | 14 Mar 2025
Status: this preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP).

Application of PRIM for understanding patterns in carbon dioxide model-observation differences

Tobias Gerken, Kenneth J. Davis, Klaus Keller, and Sha Feng

Abstract. Reducing uncertainties in regional carbon balances requires a better understanding of CO2 transport in synoptic weather systems. Here, we apply the Patient Rule Induction Method (PRIM) to airborne observations of of potential temperature, wind speed, water vapor mixing ratio, and CO2 dry mol fraction gathered during the Atmospheric Carbon and Transport (ACT)-America Summer 2016 and Winter 2017 campaigns. ACT observations were targeted at expert-designated cases of fair weather and near-frontal warm and cold sector air at atmospheric boundary-layer, lower-, and higher free tropospheric levels (ABL, LFT, and HFT, respectively).

We investigate atmospheric characteristics cases of these pre-defined cases and associated CO2 model-observation-differences in the mesoscale WRF-Chem model. PRIM results separate winter- and summertime observations as well as observations from ABL, LFT, and HFT with enrichment factors of 4–20 inside the PRIM box compared to the entire dataset but cannot distinguish between near-frontal warm and cold sector observations in the higher free troposphere. Using the PRIM constrained atmospheric parameter space, we find that large magnitude model observation differences preferentially associated with times when atmospheric conditions are less typical. This association suggests that that PRIM could provide a useful tool for isolating atmospheric conditions with large-magnitude and non-Gaussian CO2-residuals for targeted transport model evaluation and to potentially improve inversion results during synoptically active periods.

Publisher's note: Copernicus Publications remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims made in the text, published maps, institutional affiliations, or any other geographical representation in this preprint. The responsibility to include appropriate place names lies with the authors.
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We apply the Patient Rule Induction Method (PRIM) technique to airborne CO2 and meteorological...
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