1. Nature Doesn’t 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

2. Organizing Principle: 1 topic superficially

3. Organizing Principle: 1 topic superficially Many topics with vanishing content

4. 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) My tortuous path

5. Where does anthropogenic CO 2 end up?

6. Measurements of O 2 and CO 2  O2 = Land biota + Industry  CO2 = Land biota + Industry + Ocean

7. Measurements of O 2 and CO 2 real time collections

8. The Princeton cooperative flask sampling network

9. Ships of opportunity

10. Automated sample collection systems

12. O 2 /N 2 changes are small  O 2 /N 2 per meg  (O 2 /N 2sa – O 2 /N 2st )/(O 2 /N 2st ) x10 6 1 per meg = 0.0001% 1 GtC from FF  3.2 per meg  O2/N2

13. 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)

14. Measurements of O 2 and CO 2 real time collections average land/ocean carbon partition 1991  present

15. Measurements of O 2 and CO 2  O2 = Land biota + Industry  CO2 = Land biota + Industry + Ocean

16. Measurements of O 2 and CO 2  O2 = Land biota + Industry  CO2 = Land biota + Industry + Ocean

17. Measurements of O 2 and CO 2  O2 = Land biota + Industry  CO2 = Land biota + Industry + Ocean

18. Determining the O 2 :CO 2 stoichiometry for the land biota

19. Measurements of O 2 and CO 2 real time collections air archives average land/ocean carbon partition 1991  present measure land O 2 :CO 2 stoichiometry

20. Firn (snowpack) as an air archive Ice Surface Firn ~120m

21. Influences of firn air composition Overlying atmosphere (Fick’s laws)

22. Influences of firn air composition Overlying atmosphere (Fick’s laws) Selective exclusion at bubble close-off (Knudsen regime) Gravitational settling (barometric equation) Thermal fractionation (kinetic theory) Wind pumping/bulk flow (Bernard convection?)

23. 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

24. The inverse problem… 1.Start with a set of observations 2.What atmospheric history led to those data?

25. The mechanistic inverse problem… 1.Start with a set of observations 2.What atmospheric history led to those data? Trial history  (land sink) +  (fossil source)+  (exclusion flux) Battle et al., Nature 1996 (231-235) Land sink: 0.4 ± 0.4 GtC/yr for 1977-1985

26. The phenomenological inverse problem… 1.Start with a set of observations 2.What atmospheric history led to those data? Trial history  f  t  Montzka et al., Geophys. Res. Lett., In press

27. Measurements of O 2 and CO 2 real time collections air archives average land/ocean carbon partition 1991  present average land/ocean carbon partition 1977  1985 histories of other species ~1900  present measure land O 2 :CO 2 stoichiometry

28. 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