Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net 1680-7367 1680-7375 7 3 2007 10.5194/acpd-7-6719-2007 http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/7/6719/2007/ http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/7/6719/2007/acpd-7-6719-2007.html http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/7/6719/2007/acpd-7-6719-2007.pdf 6719 6735 2007-05-16 First direct observation of the atmospheric CO₂ year-to-year increase from space M. Buchwitz michael.buchwitz@iup.physik.uni-bremen.de O. Schneising J. P. Burrows H. Bovensmann J. Notholt Institute of Environmental Physics (IUP), University of Bremen FB1, Bremen, Germany The reliable prediction of future atmospheric CO₂ concentrations and associated global climate change requires an adequate understanding of the CO₂ sources and sinks. The sparseness of the existing surface measurement network limits current knowledge about the global distribution of CO₂ surface fluxes. The retrieval of the CO₂ total vertical column from satellite observations is predicted to improve this situation. Such an application however requires very high accuracy and precision on the order of 1% (4 ppm) or better. We report on retrievals of the column-averaged CO₂ dry air mole fraction, denoted XCO₂, from the measurements of the SCIAMACHY satellite instrument between 2003 and 2005. We focus on northern hemispheric large scale CO₂ features such as the CO₂ seasonal cycle and show – for the first time – that the atmospheric annual increase of CO₂ can be directly observed using satellite measurements of the CO₂ total column. The satellite retrievals are compared with the global assimilation system CarbonTracker and with local surface CO₂ measurements based on weekly flask sampling. We show that the year-to-year CO₂ increase as determined from the satellite data agrees with the reference data within about 1 ppm/year. 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