98 research outputs found

    Global atmospheric CO₂ inverse models converging on neutral tropical land exchange, but disagreeing on fossil fuel and atmospheric growth rate

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    We have compared a suite of recent global CO₂ atmospheric inversion results to independent airborne observations and to each other, to assess their dependence on differences in northern extratropical (NET) vertical transport and to identify some of the drivers of model spread. We evaluate posterior CO₂ concentration profiles against observations from the High-Performance Instrumented Airborne Platform for Environmental Research (HIAPER) Pole-to-Pole Observations (HIPPO) aircraft campaigns over the mid-Pacific in 2009–2011. Although the models differ in inverse approaches, assimilated observations, prior fluxes, and transport models, their broad latitudinal separation of land fluxes has converged significantly since the Atmospheric Carbon Cycle Inversion Intercomparison (TransCom 3) and the REgional Carbon Cycle Assessment and Processes (RECCAP) projects, with model spread reduced by 80 % since TransCom 3 and 70 % since RECCAP. Most modeled CO₂ fields agree reasonably well with the HIPPO observations, specifically for the annual mean vertical gradients in the Northern Hemisphere. Northern Hemisphere vertical mixing no longer appears to be a dominant driver of northern versus tropical (T) annual flux differences. Our newer suite of models still gives northern extratropical land uptake that is modest relative to previous estimates (Gurney et al., 2002; Peylin et al., 2013) and near-neutral tropical land uptake for 2009–2011. Given estimates of emissions from deforestation, this implies a continued uptake in intact tropical forests that is strong relative to historical estimates (Gurney et al., 2002; Peylin et al., 2013). The results from these models for other time periods (2004–2014, 2001–2004, 1992–1996) and re-evaluation of the TransCom 3 Level 2 and RECCAP results confirm that tropical land carbon fluxes including deforestation have been near neutral for several decades. However, models still have large disagreements on ocean–land partitioning. The fossil fuel (FF) and the atmospheric growth rate terms have been thought to be the best-known terms in the global carbon budget, but we show that they currently limit our ability to assess regional-scale terrestrial fluxes and ocean–land partitioning from the model ensemble

    Design, Commissioning and Performance of the PIBETA Detector at PSI

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    We describe the design, construction and performance of the PIBETA detector built for the precise measurement of the branching ratio of pion beta decay, pi+ -> pi0 e+ nu, at the Paul Scherrer Institute. The central part of the detector is a 240-module spherical pure CsI calorimeter covering 3*pi sr solid angle. The calorimeter is supplemented with an active collimator/beam degrader system, an active segmented plastic target, a pair of low-mass cylindrical wire chambers and a 20-element cylindrical plastic scintillator hodoscope. The whole detector system is housed inside a temperature-controlled lead brick enclosure which in turn is lined with cosmic muon plastic veto counters. Commissioning and calibration data were taken during two three-month beam periods in 1999/2000 with pi+ stopping rates between 1.3*E3 pi+/s and 1.3*E6 pi+/s. We examine the timing, energy and angular detector resolution for photons, positrons and protons in the energy range of 5-150 MeV, as well as the response of the detector to cosmic muons. We illustrate the detector signatures for the assorted rare pion and muon decays and their associated backgrounds.Comment: 117 pages, 48 Postscript figures, 5 tables, Elsevier LaTeX, submitted to Nucl. Instrum. Meth.

    Impact of stratospheric air and surface emissions on tropospheric nitrous oxide during ATom

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    We measured the global distribution of tropospheric N2O mixing ratios during the NASA airborne Atmospheric Tomography (ATom) mission. ATom measured concentrations of ∌ 300 gas species and aerosol properties in 647 vertical profiles spanning the Pacific, Atlantic, Arctic, and much of the Southern Ocean basins, nearly from pole to pole, over four seasons (2016–2018). We measured N2O concentrations at 1 Hz using a quantum cascade laser spectrometer (QCLS). We introduced a new spectral retrieval method to account for the pressure and temperature sensitivity of the instrument when deployed on aircraft. This retrieval strategy improved the precision of our ATom QCLS N2O measurements by a factor of three (based on the standard deviation of calibration measurements). Our measurements show that most of the variance of N2O mixing ratios in the troposphere is driven by the influence of N2O-depleted stratospheric air, especially at mid- and high latitudes. We observe the downward propagation of lower N2O mixing ratios (compared to surface stations) that tracks the influence of stratosphere–troposphere exchange through the tropospheric column down to the surface. The highest N2O mixing ratios occur close to the Equator, extending through the boundary layer and free troposphere. We observed influences from a complex and diverse mixture of N2O sources, with emission source types identified using the rich suite of chemical species measured on ATom and the geographical origin calculated using an atmospheric transport model. Although ATom flights were mostly over the oceans, the most prominent N2O enhancements were associated with anthropogenic emissions, including from industry (e.g., oil and gas), urban sources, and biomass burning, especially in the tropical Atlantic outflow from Africa. Enhanced N2O mixing ratios are mostly associated with pollution-related tracers arriving from the coastal area of Nigeria. Peaks of N2O are often associated with indicators of photochemical processing, suggesting possible unexpected source processes. In most cases, the results show how difficult it is to separate the mixture of different sources in the atmosphere, which may contribute to uncertainties in the N2O global budget. The extensive data set from ATom will help improve the understanding of N2O emission processes and their representation in global models.This research has been supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (grant nos. NNX15AJ23G, NNX17AF54G, NNX15AG58A, NNX15AH33A, and 80NSSC19K0124) and the National Science Foundation (grant nos. 1852977, AGS-1547626, and AGS-1623745)

    Precision Measurement of the Ds∗+−Ds+D_s^{*+}- D_s^+ Mass Difference

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    We have measured the vector-pseudoscalar mass splitting M(Ds∗+)−M(Ds+)=144.22±0.47±0.37MeVM(D_s^{*+})-M(D_s^+) = 144.22\pm 0.47\pm 0.37 MeV, significantly more precise than the previous world average. We minimize the systematic errors by also measuring the vector-pseudoscalar mass difference M(D∗0)−M(D0)M(D^{*0})-M(D^0) using the radiative decay D∗0→D0ÎłD^{*0}\rightarrow D^0\gamma, obtaining [M(Ds∗+)−M(Ds+)]−[M(D∗0)−M(D0)]=2.09±0.47±0.37MeV[M(D_s^{*+})-M(D_s^+)]-[M(D^{*0})-M(D^0)] = 2.09\pm 0.47\pm 0.37 MeV. This is then combined with our previous high-precision measurement of M(D∗0)−M(D0)M(D^{*0})-M(D^0), which used the decay D∗0→D0π0D^{*0}\rightarrow D^0\pi^0. We also measure the mass difference M(Ds+)−M(D+)=99.5±0.6±0.3M(D_s^+)-M(D^+)=99.5\pm 0.6\pm 0.3 MeV, using the ϕπ+\phi\pi^+ decay modes of the Ds+D_s^+ and D+D^+ mesons.Comment: 18 pages uuencoded compressed postscript (process with uudecode then gunzip). hardcopies with figures can be obtained by sending mail to: [email protected]

    Production and Decay of D_1(2420)^0 and D_2^*(2460)^0

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    We have investigated D+π−D^{+}\pi^{-} and D∗+π−D^{*+}\pi^{-} final states and observed the two established L=1L=1 charmed mesons, the D1(2420)0D_1(2420)^0 with mass 2421−2−2+1+22421^{+1+2}_{-2-2} MeV/c2^{2} and width 20−5−3+6+320^{+6+3}_{-5-3} MeV/c2^{2} and the D2∗(2460)0D_2^*(2460)^0 with mass 2465±3±32465 \pm 3 \pm 3 MeV/c2^{2} and width 28−7−6+8+628^{+8+6}_{-7-6} MeV/c2^{2}. Properties of these final states, including their decay angular distributions and spin-parity assignments, have been studied. We identify these two mesons as the jlight=3/2j_{light}=3/2 doublet predicted by HQET. We also obtain constraints on {\footnotesize ΓS/(ΓS+ΓD)\Gamma_S/(\Gamma_S + \Gamma_D)} as a function of the cosine of the relative phase of the two amplitudes in the D1(2420)0D_1(2420)^0 decay.Comment: 15 pages in REVTEX format. hardcopies with figures can be obtained by sending mail to: [email protected]
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