An Approach for Assessing Human Respiration CO2 Emissions Using Radiocarbon Measurements and Bottom‐Up Data Sets

作者：Peng Wang, Weijian Zhou, Zhenchuan Niu, Da Huo, Jie Zhou, Haogen Li, Peng Cheng, Shugang Wu, Xiaohu Xiong, Ning Chen · 发表于：Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.1029/2023jd040578 · 被引用次数：5 · 研究领域：Atmospheric and Environmental Gas Dynamics、Wind and Air Flow Studies、Vehicle emissions and performance

Abstract Carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) is a major greenhouse gas in the atmosphere and has large impacts on climate change. Its fossil fuel (CO 2ff ) and biogenic (CO 2bio ) sources are well investigated, while CO 2 emissions from human respiration (CO 2hr ), a subset of CO 2bio , have received less attention. Especially as a source of carbon emissions in densely populated megacities, the role of CO 2hr emissions in the carbon cycles was largely neglected. Here we fully characterize the respiratory CO 2 emission rates (CERs) of Chinese people for the first time. Using the example of the megacity Beijing in China, we estimate the CO 2hr emissions and present a method for quantifying its fraction in the atmospheric CO 2 based on radiocarbon ( 14 C) measurements and inventory data sets. The results show that males and females have similar age trends in CERs, but the gender difference is significant, especially between the ages of 20 and 60, the average CERs was 33% higher for males than for females ( P < 0.05). The CO 2hr emissions were about 22.2 ± 0.6 kt CO 2 per day, which was equivalent to 7.5% of daily CO 2ff emissions in winter. The proportion is likely to be twice in summer due to the seasonal fluctuations of fossil fuel emissions. More importantly, the respiratory emissions could increase atmospheric CO 2 concentration by about 2 ppm, accounting for 14% ± 6% of average CO 2bio concentration in winter. This study highlights the importance of human respiration in carbon emissi...