Recently, I stumbled upon this NASA map of the Earth from the OCO-2, a satellite that measures CO2 density in the atmosphere. http://www.climatecentral.org/news/nasa-tools-co2-19681 Specifically, I'm refering to the tool with the CO2 heat map with the split-screen slider.
As you can see during the spring, there is less CO2 over open ocean and higher CO2 over landmasses. During the summer, (by the naked eye) there seems to be a higher CO2 density across the path the satellite took. I'm curious the reason for the differences we see.
I would expect that during the summer months, when there is a higher density of CO2 , that there would be a lower density of CO2 because of an overall increase in vegetation. During the spring, there would be more CO2 because of a significant decrease in vegetation and increase in energy consumption in the Northern Hemisphere (but not as much as during heavy winter).
Am I making a wrong assumption? What am I missing?
I think this is a distinct question from this one because I'm asking only in the scope of one year or across consecutive seasons.