STILT Footprint Tool is an online tool to analyse the potential impact of natural and anthropogenic (human-caused) emissions on the atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) at a selection of ICOS atmosphere stations. The tool has two parts: The STILT viewer and the STILT on demand calculator.
STILT viewer
The STILT viewer visualises the footprints calculated with the STILT model. Simulation results of several years for most ICOS stations are available in the STILT viewer.
STILT viewer: stilt.icos-cp.eu/viewer
STILT on demand calculator
The STILT on demand calculator can be used for running the simulation tool for any given point within Europe, and for adding the results to the data-list available in the STILT viewer for visualisation.
STILT on demand calculator: stilt.icos-cp.eu/worker
Access STILT Footprint Tool
For access to the STILT footprint calculation and viewing services, users are automatically redirected to the ATMO-ACCESS login page.
About STILT Footprint Tool
The STILT Footprint Tool is based on model simulations. The tool simulates atmospheric transport and upstream regions influencing the greenhouse gases at the station, creating so-called footprints. These footprints are combined with surface maps of natural and anthropogenic carbon fluxes, to trace changes in the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane at the station. The STILT Footprint Tool displays both the footprints as well as the concentrations of carbon dioxide or methane at different times in so-called time-series. This provides a simplified approach that can be used to evaluate different measurement strategies.
The current model framework consists of the Lagrangian transport model STILT (Stochastic Time Inverted Lagrangian Transport; Lin et al., 2003) together with emission-sector and fuel-type specific emissions from a pre-release of the EDGARv4.3 inventory (EC-JRC/PBL, 2015), biospheric CO2 fluxes from the diagnostic biosphere model VPRM (Vegetation Photosynthesis and Respiration Model; Mahadevan et al., 2008) and CH4 fluxes from wetlands and other natural sources based on model estimations. The model framework has been developed at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry and is implemented as a web-based service at the ICOS Carbon Portal.
Data from the latest European ObsPack collections, which include all atmospheric CO2 and CH4 data from ICOS stations, are displayed for comparison.
More detailed information on the STILT model framework and the surface fluxes is documented here. For questions, do not hesitate to contact us at footprint (at) icos-cp.eu