Abstract
Carbon monoxide (CO) emission amounts in China are inversely optimized with Green's functions method, CO vertical profile measurements from MOPITT satellite instrument, and the GEOS-Chem chemical transport model (CTM) for the recent 6 years (2005 - 2010). Observations from surface sites (JMA and NOAA/GMD) are used for independent validation of a posteriori emissions. Model simulations with a posteriori emissions successfully reproduce the CO outflows from China to East China Sea and the Japanese archipelago in winter and spring, and compensate the under-estimates over the central eastern China region, considerably. A posteriori emissions in China exhibit significant seasonal variation in which the seasonal peak and bottom are found in winter-spring and summer, respectively. The CO emission in March is on average 54 % higher than in August. This seasonal cycle is consistent with other recent studies. Chinese CO sources obtained by the inversion are 164.5, 171.5, 180.8, 160.3, 152.5, and 156.1 Tg/year for 2005-2010, respectively, presenting inter-annual variations due to socioeconomic conditions (e.g., controls on pollutant emissions by the 2008 Beijing Olympic game and the global depression in 2009).
