The effect of optimization and the nesting domain on carbon flux analyses in Asia using a carbon tracking system based on the ensemble Kalman filter

To estimate the surface carbon flux in Asia and investigate the effect of the nesting domain on carbon flux analyses in Asia, two experiments with different nesting domains were conducted using the CarbonTracker developed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. CarbonTracker is an inverse modeling system that uses an ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) to estimate surface carbon fluxes from surface CO₂ observations. One experiment was conducted with a nesting domain centered in Asia and the other with a nesting domain centered in North America. Both experiments analyzed the surface carbon fluxes in Asia from 2001 to 2006. The results showed that prior surface carbon fluxes were underestimated in Asia compared with the optimized fluxes. The optimized biosphere fluxes of the two experiments exhibited roughly similar spatial patterns but different magnitudes. Weekly cumulative optimized fluxes showed more diverse patterns than the prior fluxes, indicating that more detailed flux analyses were conducted during the optimization. The nesting domain in Asia produced a detailed estimate of the surface carbon fluxes in Asia and exhibited better agreement with the CO₂ observations. Finally, the simulated background atmospheric CO₂ concentrations in the experiment with the nesting domain in Asia were more consistent with the observed CO₂ concentrations than those in the experiment with the nesting domain in North America. The results of this study suggest that surface carbon fluxes in Asia can be estimated more accurately using an EnKF when the nesting domain is centered in Asian regions.