Temporary pause in the growth of atmospheric ethane and propane in 2015–2018

Angot, Hélène; Davel, Connor; Wiedinmyer, Christine; Pétron, Gabrielle; Chopra, Jashan; Hueber, Jacques; Blanchard, Brendan; Bourgeois, Ilann; Vimont, Isaac; Montzka, Stephen A.; Miller, Ben R.; Elkins, James W.; Helmig, Detlev

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-15153-2021

Articles | Volume 21, issue 19

Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 15153–15170, 2021

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-15153-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 15153–15170, 2021

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-15153-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 21, issue 19

Research article 12 Oct 2021

Research article | 12 Oct 2021

Temporary pause in the growth of atmospheric ethane and propane in 2015–2018

Hélène Angot et al.

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-15153-2021-supplement

Data sets

Atmospheric tracers for Arctic wildfires, air pollution, atmospheric chemistry, and climate change at GEOSummit H. Angot, D. Helmig, J. Hueber, J. Chopra, C. Davel, and C. Wiedinmyer https://doi.org/10.18739/A2FX73Z7B

Atmospheric hydrocarbons as tracers for climate change, air transport, and oxidation chemistry in the Arctic D. Helmig https://doi.org/10.18739/A2RS0X

Index of /aftp/data/hats/PERSEUS/ NOAA GML https://gml.noaa.gov/aftp/data/hats/PERSEUS/

Short summary

After a multidecadal global decline in atmospheric abundance of ethane and propane (precursors of tropospheric ozone and aerosols), previous work showed a reversal of this trend in 2009–2015 in the Northern Hemisphere due to the growth in oil and natural gas production in North America. Here we show a temporary pause in the growth of atmospheric ethane and propane in 2015–2018 and highlight the critical need for additional top-down studies to further constrain ethane and propane emissions.