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Title: Exploiting OMI NO2 satellite observations to infer fossil-fuel CO2 emissions from U.S. megacities

Abstract

Fossil-fuel CO2 emissions and their trends in eight U.S. megacities during 2006–2017 are inferred by combining satellite-derived NOX emissions with bottom-up city-specific NOX-to-CO2 emission ratios. A statistical model is fit to a collection NO2 plumes observed from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI), and is used to calculate top-down NOX emissions. Decreases in OMI-derived NOX emissions are observed across the eight cities from 2006 to 2017 (-17% in Miami to -58% in Los Angeles), and are generally consistent with long-term trends of bottom-up inventories (-25% in Miami to -49% in Los Angeles), but there are some interannual discrepancies. City-specific NOX-to-CO2 emission ratios, used to calculate inferred CO2, are estimated through annual bottom-up inventories of NOX and CO2 emissions disaggregated to 1 × 1 km2 resolution. Over the study period, NOX-to-CO2 emission ratios have decreased by ~40% nationwide (-24% to -51% for our studied cities), which is attributed to a faster reduction in NOX when compared to CO2 due to policy regulations and fuel type shifts. Combining top-down NOX emissions and bottom-up NOX-to-CO2 emission ratios, annual fossil-fuel CO2 emissions are derived. Inferred OMI-based top-down CO2 emissions trends vary between +7% in Dallas to -31% in Phoenix. For 2017, we report annual fossil-fuelmore » CO2 emissions to be: Los Angeles 113 ± 49 Tg/yr; New York City 144 ± 62 Tg/yr; and Chicago 55 ± 24 Tg/yr. A study in the Los Angeles area, using independent methods, reported a 2013–2016 average CO2 emissions rate of 104 Tg/yr and 120 Tg/yr, which suggests that the CO2 emissions from our method are in good agreement with other studies' top-down estimates. Lastly, we anticipate future remote sensing instruments – with better spatial and temporal resolution – will better constrain the NOX-to-CO2 ratio and reduce the uncertainty in our method.« less

Authors:
ORCiD logo [1];  [1];  [2];  [2];  [2];  [3];  [3];  [4];  [4];  [1]
  1. Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Lemont, IL (United States); Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States)
  2. Univ. Space Research Assoc., Columbia, MD (United States); NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD (United States)
  3. Environment and Climate Change Canada, Toronto, ON (Canada)
  4. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Fossil Energy (FE); USDOE Office of Science (SC)
OSTI Identifier:
1569244
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1556999
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC02-06CH11357
Resource Type:
Journal Article: Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Science of the Total Environment
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 695; Journal Issue: C; Journal ID: ISSN 0048-9697
Publisher:
Elsevier
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; OMI NO2; NOx emissions; CO2 emissions; top-down emissions

Citation Formats

Goldberg, Daniel L., Lu, Zifeng, Oda, Tomohiro, Lamsal, Lok N., Liu, Fei, Griffin, Debora, McLinden, Chris A., Krotkov, Nickolay A., Duncan, Bryan N., and Streets, David G. Exploiting OMI NO2 satellite observations to infer fossil-fuel CO2 emissions from U.S. megacities. United States: N. p., 2019. Web. doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.133805.
Goldberg, Daniel L., Lu, Zifeng, Oda, Tomohiro, Lamsal, Lok N., Liu, Fei, Griffin, Debora, McLinden, Chris A., Krotkov, Nickolay A., Duncan, Bryan N., & Streets, David G. Exploiting OMI NO2 satellite observations to infer fossil-fuel CO2 emissions from U.S. megacities. United States. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.133805
Goldberg, Daniel L., Lu, Zifeng, Oda, Tomohiro, Lamsal, Lok N., Liu, Fei, Griffin, Debora, McLinden, Chris A., Krotkov, Nickolay A., Duncan, Bryan N., and Streets, David G. 2019. "Exploiting OMI NO2 satellite observations to infer fossil-fuel CO2 emissions from U.S. megacities". United States. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.133805. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1569244.
@article{osti_1569244,
title = {Exploiting OMI NO2 satellite observations to infer fossil-fuel CO2 emissions from U.S. megacities},
author = {Goldberg, Daniel L. and Lu, Zifeng and Oda, Tomohiro and Lamsal, Lok N. and Liu, Fei and Griffin, Debora and McLinden, Chris A. and Krotkov, Nickolay A. and Duncan, Bryan N. and Streets, David G.},
abstractNote = {Fossil-fuel CO2 emissions and their trends in eight U.S. megacities during 2006–2017 are inferred by combining satellite-derived NOX emissions with bottom-up city-specific NOX-to-CO2 emission ratios. A statistical model is fit to a collection NO2 plumes observed from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI), and is used to calculate top-down NOX emissions. Decreases in OMI-derived NOX emissions are observed across the eight cities from 2006 to 2017 (-17% in Miami to -58% in Los Angeles), and are generally consistent with long-term trends of bottom-up inventories (-25% in Miami to -49% in Los Angeles), but there are some interannual discrepancies. City-specific NOX-to-CO2 emission ratios, used to calculate inferred CO2, are estimated through annual bottom-up inventories of NOX and CO2 emissions disaggregated to 1 × 1 km2 resolution. Over the study period, NOX-to-CO2 emission ratios have decreased by ~40% nationwide (-24% to -51% for our studied cities), which is attributed to a faster reduction in NOX when compared to CO2 due to policy regulations and fuel type shifts. Combining top-down NOX emissions and bottom-up NOX-to-CO2 emission ratios, annual fossil-fuel CO2 emissions are derived. Inferred OMI-based top-down CO2 emissions trends vary between +7% in Dallas to -31% in Phoenix. For 2017, we report annual fossil-fuel CO2 emissions to be: Los Angeles 113 ± 49 Tg/yr; New York City 144 ± 62 Tg/yr; and Chicago 55 ± 24 Tg/yr. A study in the Los Angeles area, using independent methods, reported a 2013–2016 average CO2 emissions rate of 104 Tg/yr and 120 Tg/yr, which suggests that the CO2 emissions from our method are in good agreement with other studies' top-down estimates. Lastly, we anticipate future remote sensing instruments – with better spatial and temporal resolution – will better constrain the NOX-to-CO2 ratio and reduce the uncertainty in our method.},
doi = {10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.133805},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1569244}, journal = {Science of the Total Environment},
issn = {0048-9697},
number = C,
volume = 695,
place = {United States},
year = {Thu Aug 08 00:00:00 EDT 2019},
month = {Thu Aug 08 00:00:00 EDT 2019}
}

Journal Article:

Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 20 works
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Figures / Tables:

Figure 1 Figure 1: Bottom-up emissions for (top) NOX and (bottom) CO2 spatially allocated to 1 x 1 km2. (Left) Annual emissions for 2016. (Right) Difference between annual emissions between 2016 and 2005.

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Works referencing / citing this record:

A methodology to constrain carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants using satellite observations of co-emitted nitrogen dioxide
journal, January 2020


Figures/Tables have been extracted from DOE-funded journal article accepted manuscripts.