Anthropogenic and biogenic winter sources of Arctic CO2— a model study

Long-range transport of anthropogenic and biogenic CO₂ to a remote site in the Arctic is studied. A limited area, off-line, Eulerian atmospheric transport model is used, and the results are compared to the observed CO₂ concentration at the ‘Ny-Alesund International Arctic Research and Monitoring Facility’. Inventories of anthropogenic CO₂ emissions and estimates of biogenic CO₂ emissions are used to investigate the respective impact of these emissions on Arctic CO₂ variations during 4 winter months. A direct comparison of the modelled and observed concentrations reveals remarkably good timing in the modelled variations as compared to the observed variations for most of the time. The correlation of observed versus modelled CO₂ concentration is significant at the 95% confidence level. The biogenic and the anthropogenic CO₂ emissions are shown to have approximately equal influence on Arctic CO₂ variations during winter. Europe is found to be the dominant source of anthropogenic CO₂ at the monitoring station, while Siberia and Northern America have little influence on Arctic CO₂, during the months studied. These results contradict Engardt and Holmén whose results indicate that the lower-Ob region in western Siberia has a large impact on Arctic CO₂.