Emissions of methane in Europe inferred by total column measurements

Wunch, Debra; Jones, Dylan B. A.; Toon, Geoffrey C.; Deutscher, Nicholas M.; Hase, Frank; Notholt, Justus; Sussmann, Ralf; Warneke, Thorsten; Kuenen, Jeroen; Denier van der Gon, Hugo; Fisher, Jenny A.; Maasakkers, Joannes D.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-3963-2019

Articles | Volume 19, issue 6

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-3963-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-3963-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 6

Research article

|

28 Mar 2019

Research article |

| 28 Mar 2019

Emissions of methane in Europe inferred by total column measurements

Debra Wunch, Dylan B. A. Jones, Geoffrey C. Toon, Nicholas M. Deutscher, Frank Hase, Justus Notholt, Ralf Sussmann, Thorsten Warneke, Jeroen Kuenen, Hugo Denier van der Gon, Jenny A. Fisher, and Joannes D. Maasakkers

Data sets

TCCON data from Bremen, Germany, Release GGG2014R0. TCCON data archive, hosted by CaltechDATA, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, U.S.A. J. Notholt, C. Petri, T. Warneke, N. Deutscher, M. Buschmann, C. Weinzierl, R. Macatangay, and P. Grupe. https://doi.org/10.14291/tccon.ggg2014.bremen01.R0/1149275

TCCON data from Garmisch, Germany, Release GGG2014R1. TCCON data archive, hosted by CaltechDATA, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, U.S.A. R. Sussmann and M. Rettinger https://doi.org/10.14291/tccon.ggg2014.garmisch01.R1

TCCON data from Karlsruhe, Germany, Release GGG2014R1. TCCON data archive, hosted by CaltechDATA, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, U.S.A. F. Hase, T. Blumenstock, S. Dohe, J. Gros, and M. Kiel https://doi.org/10.14291/tccon.ggg2014.karlsruhe01.R1/1182416

TCCON data from Orleans, France, Release GGG2014R0. TCCON data archive, hosted by CaltechDATA, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, U.S.A. T. Warneke, J. Messerschmidt, J. Notholt, C. Weinzierl, N. Deutscher, C. Petri, P. Grupe, C. Vuillemin, F. Truong, M. Schmidt, M. Ramonet, and E. Parmentier https://doi.org/10.14291/tccon.ggg2014.orleans01.R0/1149276

TCCON data from Bialystok, Poland, Release GGG2014R1. TCCON data archive, hosted by CaltechDATA, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, U.S.A. N. Deutscher, J. Notholt, J. Messerschmidt, C. Weinzierl, T. Warneke, C. Petri, P. Grupe, and K. Katrynski https://doi.org/10.14291/tccon.ggg2014.bialystok01.R1/1183984

Model code and software

GEOS-Chem 12.1.0 Released 26 Nov 2018 The International GEOS-Chem User Community https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1553349

Short summary

We used five atmospheric observatories in Europe measuring total column dry-air mole fractions of methane and carbon monoxide to infer methane emissions in the area between the observatories. We find that the methane emissions are overestimated by the state-of-the-art inventories, and that this is likely due, at least in part, to the inventory disaggregation. We find that there is significant uncertainty in the carbon monoxide inventories that requires further investigation.