Deriving CO2 emissions of point sources from OCO-3 XCO2 and S5P NO2 satellite data
Blanca Fuentes Andrade, University of Bremen, Institute of Environmental Physics (IUP), bfuentes@iup.physik.uni-bremen.de (Presenter)
Michael Buchwitz, University of Bremen, Institute of Environmental Physics (IUP), buchwitz@uni-bremen.de
Maximilian Reuter, University of Bremen, Institute of Environmental Physics (IUP), mreuter@iup.physik.uni-bremen.de
Heinrich Bovensmann, University of Bremen, Institute of Environmental Physics (IUP), heinrich.bovensmann@iup.physik.uni-bremen.de
John P. Burrows, University of Bremen, Institute of Environmental Physics (IUP), burrows@iup.physik.uni-bremen.de
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas and the main driver of global warming. Its atmospheric concentrations have risen more than 40% since pre-industrial times. Almost 90% of this increase results from fossil fuel combustion, emitting CO2 predominantly from localized sources. In order to control CO2 emissions it is necessary to accurately monitor them. Under the Paris Agreement, progress of emission reduction efforts is tracked on the basis of regular updates to national greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories, referred to as bottom-up estimates. Emission estimates can also be obtained top-down using atmospheric observations for verification and to obtain additional information. In this context, especially satellite observations are important as they can provide relevant information globally.
Due to CO2's long lifetime and large fluxes of natural origin, the column-average concentrations resulting from anthropogenic emissions from individual source points are usually small compared to the background concentration, and these enhancements are often barely larger than the satellite's instrument noise. This makes the detection of CO2 emission plumes and the quantification of anthropogenic fluxes challenging.
NO2 is co-emitted with CO2 in the combustion of fossil fuels. It has a much shorter lifetime, and as a result, its vertical column densities can exceed background values and sensor noise by orders of magnitude in emission plumes. This makes it a suitable tracer for recently emitted CO2.
The objective of this study is to quantify the CO2 emissions from localized sources such as power plants by using XCO2 (the column-averaged dry air mole fraction of CO2) retrievals from the Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3 (OCO-3) in its snapshot area mode. Our presentation describes a plume detection method using NO2 as a tracer for recently emitted CO2 and an inversion technique to quantify CO2 emissions from detected CO2 plumes.
Poster: Poster_Fuentes_Andrade__29_25.pdf
Presentation Type: Poster
Session: 4.2c Observations to quantify hot spots and local/urban emissions
Session Date: Thursday (6/17) 10:00 AM