What is FLEXINVERT?
Flexinvert is a software for the optimisation of surface to atmosphere fluxes of various species. It is based on Bayesian statistics and finds the most probable estimate of the fluxes, that is, the one that best fits the atmospheric observations within specified ranges of uncertainty about both the observations and the prior estimate of the fluxes. The fluxes are compared to observations using a model of atmospheric transport. In Flexinvert, the transport is based on the Lagrangian Particle Dispersion Model, Flexpart.
Flexinvert can be used to estimate fluxes from global to regional scale and it can be used for any atmospheric species as long as the chemistry or decay (if any) can be described as a first-order process. It has already been used to estimate fluxes of CO2, CH4, N2O, black carbon, as well as various F-gases (SF6, HFC-125, and HFC-134a). The software has also been used in numerous European and Norwegian research projects.
Development
Flexinvert (in its current form) was developed in 2017 by Rona Thompson at NILU (Norwegian Institute for Air Research). Flexinvert is open source code and can be modified and distributed under the terms of GNU General Public License.
If you are interested in using FlexInvert and/or contributing to its further development, please contact Rona Thompson