ACPD Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions ACPD 1680-7375 Copernicus GmbH Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/acpd-4-4999-2004 Increased Northern Hemispheric carbon monoxide burden in the troposphere in 2002 and 2003 detected from the ground and from space Yurganov L. N. 1 Duchatelet P. 2 Dzhola A. V. 3 Edwards D. P. 4 Hase F. 5 Kramer I. 5 Mahieu E. 2 Mellqvist J. 6 Notholt J. 7 Novelli P. C. 8 Rockmann A. 9 Scheel H. E. 9 Schneider M. 5 Schulz A. 10 Strandberg A. 6 Sussmann R. 9 Tanimoto H. 11 Velazco V. 7 Drummond J. R. 12 Gille J. C. 4 Frontier Research Center for Global Change, JAMSTEC, Yokohama, Japan Institute of Astrophysics and Geophysics, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium Obukhov Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Moscow, Russia Atmospheric Chemistry Division, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA IMK-ISF, Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany Radio and Space Science, Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg, Sweden University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany Climate Monitoring and Diagnostic Laboratory, NOAA, Boulder, Colorado, USA IMK-IFU, Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany Alfred-Wegener-Institute, Potsdam, Germany National Institute for Environmental Studies, Tsukuba, Japan University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada 06 09 2004 4 5 4999 5017 This is an open-access article ditributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This article is available from http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/4/4999/2004/acpd-4-4999-2004.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/4/4999/2004/acpd-4-4999-2004.pdf

Carbon monoxide total column amounts in the atmosphere have been measured in the High Northern Hemisphere (30°–90° N, HNH) between January 2002 and December 2003, based on the analysis of infrared solar spectra recorded with spectrometers of high and moderate resolution. They are compared to ground-level CO mixing ratios and to total column amounts measured from space by the Terra/MOPITT instrument. In comparison to the unperturbed 2000–2001 period, all these databases reveal increased CO abundances in 2002–2003 summer-autumn times, with maximum anomalies observed in September 2002 and August 2003. Using a simple two-box model, the corresponding annual CO emission anomalies have been found equal to 98 Tg in 2002 and 142 Tg in 2003, thus close to those for 1996 and 1998. It is most likely that strong boreal forest fires in the HNH induced the increased CO burdens.