Quantifying NO x Emissions from U.S. Oil and Gas Production Regions Using TROPOMI NO 2

作者：Barbara Dix, Colby Francoeur, Meng Li, Raquel Serrano‐Calvo, P. F. Levelt, Pepijn Veefkind, Brian McDonald, J. A. de Gouw · 发表于：ACS Earth and Space Chemistry · 年份：2022 · DOI：10.1021/acsearthspacechem.1c00387 · 被引用次数：54 · 研究领域：Atmospheric chemistry and aerosols、Atmospheric and Environmental Gas Dynamics、Air Quality and Health Impacts

The production of crude oil and natural gas is associated with emissions of air pollutants, such as nitrogen oxides (NO x = NO + NO 2 ) and volatile organic compounds, which are precursors for the formation of ground-level ozone. Knowledge of these emissions is critical to the understanding and mitigation of local air quality. NO x emissions from oil and gas production activities are not well described in commonly used emission inventories, and discrepancies of several factors have been found in the past. Here we present an easy and computationally efficient method to quantify NO x emissions from satellite NO 2 observations that can be applied to evaluate common emission inventories and provide timely input for chemistry transport models. Using NO 2 columns from the TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI), we calculated annually averaged NO x emissions from the divergence of NO 2 column fluxes for six oil and gas production regions in the United States. Derived NO x emissions for the years 2018 to 2020 range between 4.8 and 81.1 t/day, and observed trends over time are consistent with changes in industrial activity. To evaluate the method, we compared our results with the fuel-based oil and gas NO x inventory (FOG) and performed sensitivity studies using model output from the Weather Research Forecasting model with Chemistry (WRF-Chem). We found that annually averaged NO x emissions from oil and gas production activities can in most cases be calculated within an uncertai...