Trends of Ground-Level Ozone in New York City Area during 2007–2017

The spatiotemporal patterns of ground level ozone (O3) concentrations in the New York City (NYC) metropolitan region for the 2007–2017 period were examined conjointly with local emissions of O3 precursors and the frequency of wildfires. Daily 8-h and 1-h O3 and nitric oxide (NO) concentrations were retrieved from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Air Data. Annual emission inventories for 2008 and 2017 were acquired from EPA National Emissions Inventory (NEI). The number and area burnt by natural and human-ignited wildfires were acquired from the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC). The highest daily 8-h max O3 concentrations varied from 90 to 111 parts per billion volume (ppbv) with the highest concentrations measured perimetrically to NYC urban agglomeration. The monthly 8-h max O3 levels have been declining for most of the peri-urban sites but increasing (from +0.18 to +1.39 ppbv/year) for sites within the urban agglomeration. Slightly higher O3 concentrations were measured during weekend than those measured during the weekdays in urban sites probably due to reduced O3 titration by NO. Significant reductions of locally emitted anthropogenic nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) may have triggered the transition from VOC-limited to NOX-limited conditions, with downwind VOCs sources being critically important. Strong correlations between the monthly 8-h max O3 concentrations and wildfires in Eastern US were computed. More and destructive wildfires in the region were ignited by lightning for years with moderate and strong La Niña conditions. These findings indicate that climate change may counterbalance current and future gains on O3 precursor’s reductions by amending the VOCs-to-NOx balance.

Eddy Covariance Measurements Highlight Sources of Nitrogen Oxide Emissions Missing from Inventories for Central London

During March–June 2017 emissions of nitrogen oxides were measured via eddy covariance at the British Telecom Tower in central London, UK. Through the use of a footprint model the expected emissions were simulated from the spatially resolved National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory for 2017, and compared with the measured emissions. These simulated emissions were shown to underestimate measured emissions during the day time by a factor of 1.48, but they agreed well overnight. Furthermore, underestimations were spatially mapped and the areas around the measurement site responsible for differences in measured and simulated emissions inferred. It was observed that areas of higher traffic, such as major roads near national rail stations, showed the greatest underestimation by the simulated emissions. These discrepancies are partially attributed to a combination of the inventory not fully capturing traffic conditions in central London, and both spatial and temporal resolution of the inventory not fully describing the high heterogeneity of the urban centre. Understanding of this underestimation may further improved with longer measurement time series ,to better understand temporal variation, and improved temporal scaling factors, to better simulate sub-annual emissions.

Spatial Analysis of the Ship Gas Emission Inventory in the Port of Busan Using Bottom-Up Approach Based on AIS Data

Dense hub port-cities have been suffering from ship gas emissions causing atmospheric pollution and a threat to the health of coastal residents. To control ship gas emissions, many regulations have been established internationally. Analyses of ship gas emission inventories are essential to quantify mass and track emission changes over time in a given geographical area. Based on the gas emissions inventory, applicable regulations such as Emission Control Area (ECA) realization and Vessel Speed Reduction (VSR) may be established. The ship gas emission inventory (CO2, CO, NOx, SOx and PM) from the Busan Port (BP), including the North Port (NP) and Gamcheon Dadae-po Port (GDP), which is the biggest port in the Republic of Korea and which is also surrounded by residential, commercial, and industrial areas, were spatially analyzed. To calculate geographical ship gas emissions in real-time, this study introduces a bottom-up methodology using Automatic Identification System (AIS) data. According to the geographical density analysis of the gas emissions inventory, this study highlights that about 35% of the annual ship gas emissions of BP in 2019 were concentrated in the passageway to NP because of high ship speeds when leaving or arriving at the port. To protect the health of coastal residents, ship speed limit regulations along the passageway should be revised based on our spatial analysis results. The spatial analysis of the ship gas emission inventory in BP will be useful basic data for properly evaluating the local gas emission state on newly established or revised environmental regulations for BP.

Modeling secondary organic aerosol formation from volatile chemical products

Volatile chemical products (VCPs) are commonly used consumer and industrial items that are an important source of anthropogenic emissions. Organic compounds from VCPs evaporate on atmospherically relevant timescales and include many species that are secondary organic aerosol (SOA) precursors. However, the chemistry leading to SOA, particularly that of intermediate-volatility organic compounds (IVOCs), has not been fully represented in regional-scale models such as the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model, which tend to underpredict SOA concentrations in urban areas. Here we develop a model to represent SOA formation from VCP emissions. The model incorporates a new VCP emissions inventory and employs three new classes of emissions: siloxanes, oxygenated IVOCs, and nonoxygenated IVOCs. VCPs are estimated to produce 1.67 µg m−3 of noontime SOA, doubling the current model predictions and reducing the SOA mass concentration bias from −75 % to −58 % when compared to observations in Los Angeles in 2010. While oxygenated and nonoxygenated intermediate-volatility VCP species are emitted in similar quantities, SOA formation is dominated by the nonoxygenated IVOCs. Formaldehyde and SOA show similar relationships to temperature and bias signatures, indicating common sources and/or chemistry. This work suggests that VCPs contribute up to half of anthropogenic SOA in Los Angeles and models must better represent SOA precursors from VCPs to predict the urban enhancement of SOA.

Low Carbon Diet: Integrating Gastronomy Service Emissions into the Carbon Management of the University of Graz

To avert the upcoming crisis of climate change, significant changes on different scales and sectors are necessary. The knowledge and research of the higher education sector is an essential part in the fight against climate change already. Many universities admit the urgency of acting within their institution as well and have started to measure their impact on the environment to formulate emission-reduction goals. As part of its sustainability strategy, the University of Graz launched the Institutional Carbon Management (ICM) project to calculate its emissions via a greenhouse gas emissions inventory. In comparison to other inventories, the ICM also includes the gastronomy services on and around the campus of the University of Graz, which is also the focus of this paper. It was found that especially energy- and carbon-intensive food products such as meat and dairy contribute to the emissions of a gastronomy service. In total, the gastronomy service emissions contribute 1.1% to the total emissions inventory of the university. Although the contribution is a rather small portion, the University of Graz sees itself responsible for all its emissions and therefore also aims to gain comprehensive insights into all sub-areas of its institution to formulate validated reduction pathways. The changes to a more sustainable gastronomy and low-emission diets can therefore be seen as part of a wider change towards more environmentally friendly behaviour in general with the overall aim to meet the Paris climate goal.

Life-Areas and How to Estimate Greenhouse Gas Emission Footprints

To enjoy a fulfilling life, a person needs six fundamental life requirements to be met. These six requirements or “life-areas” are housing, mobility, consumption of goods (e.g., clothing), diet, other activities (entertainment), and information. In the beginning of this chapter, a top-down estimate of Austrian consumption-based emissions in each life-area is presented. These are organized into segments that may be easily reduced by changing individual behavior and those segments that are fundamental aspects of our society. The remainder of this chapter discusses how to estimate the greenhouse gas (GHG) output. There is a trade-off between accuracy and level of detail, and the need to combine bottom-up survey results with the top-down national emissions inventory. How these trade-offs may be handled is demonstrated using a practical example.

A New Separation Methodology for the Maritime Sector Emissions over the Mediterranean and Black Sea Regions

The aim of this paper is to apply a new lane separation methodology for the maritime sector emissions attributed to the different vessel types and marine traffic loads in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea defined via the European Marine and Observation Data network (EMODnet), developed in 2016. This methodology is implemented for the first time on the Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service Global Shipping (CAMS-GLOB-SHIP v2.1) nitrogen oxides (NOX) emissions inventory, on the Sentinel-5 Precursor Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) nitrogen dioxide (NO2) tropospheric vertical column densities, and on the LOTOS-EUROS (Long Term Ozone Simulation—European Operational Smog) CTM (chemical transport model) simulations. By applying this new EMODnet-based lane separation method to the CAMS-GLOB-SHIP v2.1 emission inventory, we find that cargo and tanker vessels account for approximately 80% of the total emissions in the Mediterranean, followed by fishing, passenger, and other vessel emissions with contributions of 8%, 7%, and 5%, respectively. Tropospheric NO2 vertical column densities sensed by TROPOMI for 2019 and simulated by the LOTOS-EUROS CTM have been successfully attributed to the major vessel activities in the Mediterranean; the mean annual NO2 load of the observations and the simulations reported for the entire maritime EMODnet-reported fleet of the Mediterranean is in satisfactory agreement, 1.26 ± 0.56 × 1015 molecules cm−2 and 0.98 ± 0.41 × 1015 molecules cm−2, respectively. The spatial correlation of the annual maritime NO2 loads of all vessel types between observation and simulation ranges between 0.93 and 0.98. On a seasonal basis, both observations and simulations show a common variability. The wintertime comparisons are in excellent agreement for the highest emitting sector, cargo vessels, with the observations reporting a mean load of 0.98 ± 0.54 and the simulations of 0.81 ± 0.45 × 1015 molecules cm−2 and correlation of 0.88. Similarly, the passenger sector reports 0.45 ± 0.49 and 0.39 ± 0.45 × 1015 molecules cm−2 respectively, with correlation of 0.95. In summertime, the simulations report a higher decrease in modelled tropospheric columns than the observations, however, still resulting in a high correlation between 0.85 and 0.94 for all sectors. These encouraging findings will permit us to proceed with creating a top-down inventory for NOx shipping emissions using S5P/TROPOMI satellite observations and a data assimilation technique based on the LOTOS-EUROS chemical transport model.

Nigeria’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Estimations Based on the 5th Assessment Report

The lack of GHG emissions inventory and absence of standardized estimation methods necessitated this study. American Petroleum Institute’s method of Greenhouse gas estimation methods combined with the global warming potential in the 5th assessment report and Nigeria’s unique gas composition were used to estimate volume of GHG’s resulting from gas flaring in Nigeria between 1965 to 2020, as reported by NNPC. The findings show the total CO2, CH4, N2O and GHG emission between 1965 to 2020 were 1.86*109 tons, 3.3*108 tons, 5.76*109 tons, and 7.94*109 tons respectively. In the 56 years under review, the gas produced was estimated at 2,14*106 MCM, while 9.44*105 MCM of the gas was flared, accounting for 44% of the total gas produced over the years. Overall, the study revealed a striking cause for concern due to the predicted continuous increasing amount of gas flaring and release of greenhouse gas emissions which could have significant effects on the environment. Curbing gas flaring: increased gas utilization for domestic and export uses and standardization of GHG estimation methods were recommended.