Assessing fossil fuel CO 2 emissions in California using atmospheric observations and models

作者：Heather Graven, M. L. Fischer, T. J. Lueker, Seongeun Jeong, Thomas P. Guilderson, Ralph F. Keeling, Ray P. Bambha, Kieran Brophy, William James Callahan, Xinguang Cui, Christian Frankenberg, Kevin Robert Gurney, Brian W. LaFranchi, Scott J. Lehman, Hope A. Michelsen, John Bharat Miller, Sally Newman, W. Paplawsky, Nicholas Cody Parazoo, C. Sloop, Stephen J. Walker · 发表于：Environmental Research Letters · 年份：2018 · DOI：10.1088/1748-9326/aabd43 · 被引用次数：53 · 研究领域：Atmospheric and Environmental Gas Dynamics、Atmospheric chemistry and aerosols、Atmospheric Ozone and Climate

Analysis systems incorporating atmospheric observations could provide a powerful tool for validating fossil fuel CO 2 (ffCO 2 ) emissions reported for individual regions, provided that fossil fuel sources can be separated from other CO 2 sources or sinks and atmospheric transport can be accurately accounted for. We quantified ffCO 2 by measuring radiocarbon ( 14 C) in CO 2 , an accurate fossil-carbon tracer, at nine observation sites in California for three months in 2014–15. There is strong agreement between the measurements and ffCO 2 simulated using a high-resolution atmospheric model and a spatiotemporally-resolved fossil fuel flux estimate. Inverse estimates of total in-state ffCO 2 emissions are consistent with the California Air Resources Board's reported ffCO 2 emissions, providing tentative validation of California's reported ffCO 2 emissions in 2014–15. Continuing this prototype analysis system could provide critical independent evaluation of reported ffCO 2 emissions and emissions reductions in California, and the system could be expanded to other, more data-poor regions.