Open AccessA new inversion method to calculate emission inventories without a prior at mesoscale: Application to the anthropogenic CO 2 emission from Houston, Texas
Author(s) -
Brioude J.,
Petron G.,
Frost G. J.,
Ahmadov R.,
Angevine W. M.,
Hsie E.Y.,
Kim S.W.,
Lee S.H.,
McKeen S. A.,
Trainer M.,
Fehsenfeld F. C.,
Holloway J. S.,
Peischl J.,
Ryerson T. B.,
Gurney K. R.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: atmospheres
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.67
H-Index - 298
eISSN - 2156-2202
pISSN - 0148-0227
DOI - 10.1029/2011jd016918
Subject(s) - mesoscale meteorology , emission inventory , environmental science , inversion (geology) , daytime , pollutant , meteorology , air quality index , atmospheric sciences , flux (metallurgy) , geology , physics , materials science , geomorphology , chemistry , organic chemistry , structural basin , metallurgy
We developed a new inversion method to calculate an emission inventory for an anthropogenic pollutant without a prior emission estimate at mesoscale. This method employs slopes between mixing ratio enhancements of a given pollutant (CO 2 , for instance) with other co‐emitted tracers in conjunction with the emission inventories of those tracers (CO, NOy, and SO 2 are used in this example). The current application of this method employed in situ measurements onboard the NOAA WP‐3 research aircraft during the 2006 Texas Air Quality Study (TexAQS 2006). We used 3 different transport models to estimate the uncertainties introduced by the transport models in the inversion. We demonstrated the validity of the new inversion method by calculating a 4 × 4 km 2 emission inventory of anthropogenic CO 2 in the Houston area in Texas, and comparing it to the 10 × 10 km 2 Vulcan emission inventory for the same region. The calculated anthropogenic CO 2 inventory for the Houston Ship Channel, home to numerous major industrial and port emission sources, showed excellent agreement with Vulcan. The daytime CO 2 average flux from the Ship Channel is the largest urban CO 2 flux reported in the literature. Compared to Vulcan, the daytime urban area CO 2 emissions were higher by 37% ± 6%. Those differences can be explained by uncertainties in emission factors in Vulcan and by increased emissions from point sources and on‐road emitters between 2002, the reference year in Vulcan, and 2006, the year that the TexAQS observations were made.