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An approach for verifying biogenic greenhouse gas emissions inventories with atmospheric CO 2 concentration data

Journal Article · · Environmental Research Letters
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Verifying national greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions inventories is a critical step to ensure that reported emissions data to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are accurate and representative of a country’s contribution to GHG concentrations in the atmosphere. Verification could include a variety of evidence, but arguably the most convincing verification would be confirmation of a change in GHG concentrations in the atmosphere that is consistent with reported emissions to the UNFCCC. We report here on a case study evaluating this option based on a prototype atmospheric CO2 measurement network deployed in the Mid-Continent Region of the conterminous United States. We found that the atmospheric CO2 measurement data did verify the accuracy of the emissions inventory within the confidence limits of the emissions estimates, suggesting that this technology could be further developed and deployed more widely in the future for verifying reported emissions.
Research Organization:
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (US)
Sponsoring Organization:
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-76RL01830
OSTI ID:
1182910
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 22499822
Report Number(s):
PNNL-SA-93358; 400409900
Journal Information:
Environmental Research Letters, Journal Name: Environmental Research Letters Journal Issue: 3 Vol. 10; ISSN 1748-9326
Publisher:
IOP PublishingCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Cited By (7)

The Indianapolis Flux Experiment (INFLUX): A test-bed for developing urban greenhouse gas emission measurements journal February 2017
High-resolution atmospheric inversion of urban CO 2 emissions during the dormant season of the Indianapolis Flux Experiment (INFLUX) : URBAN INVERSION journal May 2016
Large Uncertainties in Urban-Scale Carbon Emissions: Uncertainties in Urban Carbon Emissions journal October 2017
Carbon and energy fluxes in cropland ecosystems: a model-data comparison journal June 2016
Anthropogenic CO2 emissions from a megacity in the Yangtze River Delta of China journal June 2018
Top-Down Constraints on Anthropogenic CO 2 Emissions Within an Agricultural-Urban Landscape journal May 2018
Seasonal Characteristics of Model Uncertainties From Biogenic Fluxes, Transport, and Large‐Scale Boundary Inflow in Atmospheric CO 2 Simulations Over North America journal December 2019

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