Nature Doesn

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Nature Doesnt Yield Her Secrets Easily

• Mark Battle (Bowdoin College)
• Michael Bender (Princeton)
• Ralph Keeling (Scripps Institute of Oceanography)
  
• Pieter Tans (NOAA/CMDL)
• Jesse Bastide, Carrie Simonds, Blake Sturtevant,
  Becca Perry

EdFest Rochester 8/7/2004
Funding from NSF, EPA, NOAA GCRP, BP-Amoco,
Bowdoin College
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Organizing Principle
1 topic superficially
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Organizing Principle
1 topic superficially
Many topics with vanishing content
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My tortuous path
1988-1994 PhD in HEP experiment 1994-1997 Post
Doc. at URI-GSO (Oceanography) 1997-1999
Research Scientist at Princeton
(Geosciences) 2000 - ? Asst. Prof. Bowdoin
College (Physics)
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Where does anthropogenic CO2 end up?
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Measurements of O2 and CO2
DO2 Land biota Industry DCO2 Land biota
Industry Ocean
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Measurements of O2 and CO2
real time collections
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The Princeton cooperative flask sampling network
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Ships of opportunity
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Automated sample collection systems
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O2/N2 changes are small
?O2/N2 per meg ? (O2/N2sa O2/N2st)/(O2/N2st)
x106 1 per meg 0.0001 1 GtC from FF ? 3.2
per meg ?O2/N2
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1991 1997 Land sink 1.4 0.8 GtC/yr Ocean
sink 2.0 0.6 GtC/yr
Battle et al. Science 2000 (2467-2470)
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Measurements of O2 and CO2
real time collections
average land/ocean carbon partition 1991? present
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Measurements of O2 and CO2
DO2 Land biota Industry DCO2 Land biota
Industry Ocean
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Measurements of O2 and CO2
DO2 Land biota Industry DCO2 Land biota
Industry Ocean
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Measurements of O2 and CO2
DO2 Land biota Industry DCO2 Land biota
Industry Ocean
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Determining the O2CO2 stoichiometry for theland
biota
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Measurements of O2 and CO2
real time collections
air archives
average land/ocean carbon partition 1991? present
measure land O2CO2 stoichiometry
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Firn (snowpack) as an air archive
Surface
Firn
120m
Ice
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Influences of firn air composition

• Overlying atmosphere (Ficks laws)

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Influences of firn air composition

• Overlying atmosphere (Ficks laws)
• Selective exclusion at bubble close-off (Knudsen
  regime)
• Gravitational settling (barometric equation)
• Thermal fractionation (kinetic theory)
• Wind pumping/bulk flow (Bernard convection?)

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The forward problem

1. Posit an atmospheric history
2. Use the history to drive the model forward in
   time
3. Compare model predictions with observations

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The inverse problem

1. Start with a set of observations
2. What atmospheric history led to those data?

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The mechanistic inverse problem

1. Start with a set of observations
2. What atmospheric history led to those data?

Trial history a(land sink) b(fossil
source)g(exclusion flux)
Land sink 0.4 0.4 GtC/yr for 1977-1985
Battle et al., Nature 1996 (231-235)
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The phenomenological inverse problem

1. Start with a set of observations
2. What atmospheric history led to those data?

Trial history f (a,b,g,d,t)
Montzka et al., Geophys. Res. Lett., In press
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Measurements of O2 and CO2
real time collections
air archives
average land/ocean carbon partition
1977?1985 histories of other species 1900 ?
present
average land/ocean carbon partition 1991? present
measure land O2CO2 stoichiometry
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Full circle

• Bowdoin teaching
• Physics of the Environment (Physics 81) Spring
  '02, 05
• Introductory Physics I (Physics 103) Fall, '02
• Introductory Physics II (Physics 104) Spring
  '01, Fall '01
• E M Laboratory (Physics 223L) Fall 04
• Statistical Mechanics (Physics 229) Spring '00,
  '01, '02, '03, 05
• Acoustics (Physics 250) Fall '00
• Physical Oceanography (Physics 255) Fall '00,
  '02
• Atmospheric Physics (Physics 256) Fall '01, Fall
  04
• Physics of Particles and Nuclei (Physics 280)
  Spring '03

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