Inverse Problems in Atmospheric Constituent Transport

A description of the mathematical techniques used to interpret greenhouse gas sources and sinks.

I. G. Enting (Author)

9780521018081, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 22 August 2005

412 pages, 54 b/w illus. 12 tables
25.5 x 17.8 x 2.4 cm, 0.999 kg

The critical role of trace gases in global atmospheric change makes an improved understanding of these gases imperative. Measurements of the distributions of these gases in space and time provide important information, but the interpretation of this information often involves ill-conditioned model inversions. A variety of techniques have therefore been developed to analyze these problems. Inverse Problems in Atmospheric Constituent Transport is the first book to give comprehensive coverage of work on this topic. The trace gas inversion problem is presented in general terms and the various different approaches are unified by treating the inversion problem as one of statistical estimation. Later chapters demonstrate the application of these methods to studies of carbon dioxide, methane, halocarbons and other gases implicated in global climate change. This book is aimed at graduate students and researchers embarking upon studies of global atmospheric change, biogeochemical cycles and Earth systems science.

Part I. Principles: 1. Introduction
2. Atmospheric transport and transport models
3. Estimation
4. Time series estimation
5. Observations of atmospheric composition
6. The sources and sinks
7. Problem formulation
8. Ill-conditioning
9. Analysis of model error
10. Green's functions and synthesis inversion
11. Time-stepping inversions
12. Non-linear inversion techniques
13. Experimental design
Part II. Recent Applications: 14. Global carbon dioxide
15. Global methane
16. Halocarbons and other global-scale studies
17. Regional inversions
18. Constraining atmospheric transport
19. Conclusions
References
Appendix A. Notation
Appendix B. Numerical data
Appendix C. Abbreviations and acronyms
Appendix D. Glossary
Appendix E. Data source acknowledgements
Problems.

Subject Areas: Environmental science, engineering & technology [TQ], Atmospheric physics [PHVJ], Applied mathematics [PBW]