Articles | Volume 20, issue 20
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-11855-2020
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-11855-2020
Research article
 | 
22 Oct 2020
Research article |  | 22 Oct 2020

Errors in top-down estimates of emissions using a known source

Wayne M. Angevine, Jeff Peischl, Alice Crawford, Christopher P. Loughner, Ilana B. Pollack, and Chelsea R. Thompson

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Cited articles

Angevine, W. M.: Supporting data, https://esrl.noaa.gov/csl/groups/csl4/modeldata/, last access: 9 October 2020. 
Angevine, W. M., Brioude, J., McKeen, S., and Holloway, J. S.: Uncertainty in Lagrangian pollutant transport simulations due to meteorological uncertainty from a mesoscale WRF ensemble, Geosci. Model Dev., 7, 2817–2829, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-7-2817-2014, 2014. 
Gao, Z., Liu, H., Li, D., Katul, G. G., and Blanken, P. D.: Enhanced temperature-humidity similarity caused by entrainment processes with increased wind shear, J. Geophys. Res., 123, 4110–4121, https://doi.org/10.1029/2017JD028195, 2018. 
Hsu, Y.-K., VanCuren, T., Park, S., Jakober, C., Herner, J., FitzGibbon, M., Blake, D. R., and Parrish, D. D.: Methane emissions inventory verification in southern California, Atmos. Environ., 44, 1–7, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2009.10.002, 2010. 
Joint Committee for Guides in Metrology: JCGM 100 – Evaluation of measurement data – Guide to the expression of uncertainty in measurement, JCGM, 120 pp., 2008. 
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Short summary
Emissions of air pollutants must be known for a wide variety of applications. Different methods of estimating emissions often disagree substantially. In this study, we apply standard methods to a well-known source, a power plant. We explore the uncertainty implied by the different answers that come from the different methods, different samples taken over several years, and different pollutants. We find that the overall uncertainty of emissions estimates is about 30 %.
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