SOFT-IO : Source attribution using FLEXPART and carbon monoxide emission inventories

SOFT-IO (Sauvage et al., 2017) is a tool based on the FLEXPART particle dispersion model (Stohl et al., 2005) coupled on emission inventories provided in the scientific community (e.g. GVAS v1.2, GFED4, MACCity, EDGAR). It has been developed to quantify source/receptor links for atmospheric trace gases considered as passive, such as carbon monoxide (CO), and measured in situ.

SOFT-IO simulates the contributions of anthropogenic and biomass burning emissions from the ECCAD emission inventory database (http://eccad.aeris-data.fr/) for all locations and times corresponding to the measured CO mixing ratio along each measurements location.

The main goal is to supply added-value products to in situ data sets showing and quantifying the pollutants’ geographical origin and emission sources that drive the observed CO enhancements in the troposphere and lower stratosphere.

SOFT-IO has then been first developed, applied and evaluated using the aircraft-based CO observations of the IAGOS program (http://iagos.org) started in 2001. The added-value products (http://iagos-data.fr/#L4Place), part of the ancillary IAGOS data, will help in the understanding of the CO distribution and seasonal variability. For each CO measurements (every 0.5° in latitude or longitude at cruising altitude, every 10hPa during ascent or descent of the flight), CO origin is calculated and separated by type of source (biomass burning and anthropogenic emissions) and by geographical regions (14 over the globe, see Fig.1). Ancillary data will be available in the IAGOS data base via http://iagos-data.fr.

In the future, we aim to apply SOFT-IO tool to similar data set of CO observations (e.g. ground-based measurements, satellite observations) or to other trace gazes considered as passive tracers. SOFT-IO could also be used for statistical validation as well as for inter-comparisons of emission inventories using large amounts of data.

SOFT-IO code is free and available on request for scientific purpose only. Application of SOFT-IO to other in situ CO data set may also be provided on request through AERIS data portal. For both, the users accept to provide a brief description of the scientific interest and to offer co-authorship to the SOFT-IO Principal Investigators (see contacts).