Direct Space-Based Observations of Anthropogenic CO2 Emission Areas from OCO-2 and Comparison with Emission Inventories' Spatial Distribution

Anthropogenic CO₂ emissions from fossil fuel combustion have large impacts on climate. In order to monitor the increasing CO₂ concentrations in the atmosphere, accurate spaceborne observations—as available from the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2)—are needed. This work provides direct observation of anthropogenic CO₂ from OCO-2 over the main pollution regions: eastern USA, central Europe, and East Asia. This is achieved by deseasonalizing and detrending OCO-2 CO₂ observations to derive CO₂ anomalies. The spatial distribution of the CO₂ anomaly matches the features observed in the maps of the Ozone Monitoring Instrument NO₂ tropospheric columns, used as an indicator of atmospheric pollution. The results of a cluster analysis confirm the correlation between CO₂ and NO₂ spatial patterns.

Furthermore, we compare the distribution of the XCO₂ anomalies and various emission inventories in order to evaluate the contribution of different sectors. In particular, we analyze the spatial correlation between the XCO₂ anomalies and the EPA Greenhouse Gas Emissions Data from large emission sources in the United States. Also, the spatial distribution of the CO₂ anomalies and the EDGAR emission inventory (per sector) are compared.

Reference

Hakkarainen, J., I. Ialongo, and J. Tamminen (2016), Direct space-based observations of anthropogenic CO₂ emission areas from OCO-2, Geophys. Res. Lett., 43, 11,400–11,406, doi:10.1002/2016GL070885.