Preprints
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-416
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-416
12 Mar 2024
 | 12 Mar 2024

Verifying national inventory-based combustion emissions of CO2 across the UK and mainland Europe using satellite observations of atmospheric CO and CO2

Tia Scarpelli, Paul Palmer, Mark Lunt, Ingrid Super, and Arjan Droste

Abstract. Under the Paris Agreement, countries report their anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions in national inventories, used to track progress towards mitigation goals, but they must be independently verified. Atmospheric observations of CO2, interpreted using inverse methods, can potentially provide that verification. Conventional CO2 inverse methods infer natural CO2 fluxes by subtracting a priori estimates of fuel combustion from the a posteriori net CO2 fluxes, assuming that a priori knowledge for combustion emissions is better than for natural fluxes. We describe an inverse method that uses measurements of CO2 and carbon monoxide (CO), a trace gas that is co-emitted with CO2 during combustion, to report self-consistent combustion emissions and natural fluxes of CO2. We use an ensemble Kalman filter and the GEOS-Chem atmospheric transport model to explore how satellite observations of CO and CO2 collected by TROPOMI and OCO-2, respectively, can improve understanding of combustion emissions and natural CO2 fluxes across the UK and mainland Europe, 2018–2021. We assess the value of using satellite observations of CO2, with and without CO, above what is already available from the in situ network. Using CO2 satellite observations lead to small corrections to a priori emissions that are inconsistent with in situ observations, due partly to the insensitivity of the atmospheric CO2 column to CO2 emission changes. When we introduce satellite CO observations, we find better agreement with our in situ inversion and a better model fit to atmospheric CO2 observations. Our regional mean a posteriori combustion CO2 emission ranges 4.6–5.0 Gt a-1 (1.5–2.4 % relative standard deviation), with all inversions reporting an overestimate for Germany’s wintertime emissions. Our national a posteriori CO2 combustion emissions are highly dependent on the assumed relationship between CO2 and CO uncertainties, as expected. Generally, we find better results when we use grid-scale based a priori CO2:CO uncertainty estimates rather than a fixed relationship between the two species.

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Journal article(s) based on this preprint

26 Sep 2024
Verifying national inventory-based combustion emissions of CO2 across the UK and mainland Europe using satellite observations of atmospheric CO and CO2
Tia R. Scarpelli, Paul I. Palmer, Mark Lunt, Ingrid Super, and Arjan Droste
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 10773–10791, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10773-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10773-2024, 2024
Short summary
Tia Scarpelli, Paul Palmer, Mark Lunt, Ingrid Super, and Arjan Droste

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

Comment types: AC – author | RC – referee | CC – community | EC – editor | CEC – chief editor | : Report abuse
  • RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-416', Anonymous Referee #1, 04 May 2024
  • RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-416', Anonymous Referee #2, 24 May 2024
  • RC3: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-416', Anonymous Referee #3, 31 May 2024
  • AC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-416', Paul Palmer, 17 Jul 2024

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

Comment types: AC – author | RC – referee | CC – community | EC – editor | CEC – chief editor | : Report abuse
  • RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-416', Anonymous Referee #1, 04 May 2024
  • RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-416', Anonymous Referee #2, 24 May 2024
  • RC3: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-416', Anonymous Referee #3, 31 May 2024
  • AC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-416', Paul Palmer, 17 Jul 2024

Peer review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision | EF: Editorial file upload
AR by Paul Palmer on behalf of the Authors (17 Jul 2024)  Author's response   Author's tracked changes   Manuscript 
ED: Publish as is (14 Aug 2024) by Abhishek Chatterjee
AR by Paul Palmer on behalf of the Authors (19 Aug 2024)

Journal article(s) based on this preprint

26 Sep 2024
Verifying national inventory-based combustion emissions of CO2 across the UK and mainland Europe using satellite observations of atmospheric CO and CO2
Tia R. Scarpelli, Paul I. Palmer, Mark Lunt, Ingrid Super, and Arjan Droste
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 10773–10791, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10773-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10773-2024, 2024
Short summary
Tia Scarpelli, Paul Palmer, Mark Lunt, Ingrid Super, and Arjan Droste
Tia Scarpelli, Paul Palmer, Mark Lunt, Ingrid Super, and Arjan Droste

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Short summary
Under the Paris Agreement, countries must track their anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. This study describes a method to determine self-consistent estimates for combustion emissions and natural fluxes of CO2 from atmospheric data We report consistent estimates inferred using this approach from satellite data and ground-based data over Europe, suggesting that satellite data can be used to determine national anthropogenic CO2 emissions for countries where ground-based CO2 data are absent.