Methane emissions from China: a high-resolution inversion of TROPOMI satellite observations

Chen, Zichong; Jacob, Daniel J.; Nesser, Hannah; Sulprizio, Melissa P.; Lorente, Alba; Varon, Daniel J.; Lu, Xiao; Shen, Lu; Qu, Zhen; Penn, Elise; Yu, Xueying

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-10809-2022

Articles | Volume 22, issue 16

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-10809-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-10809-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 22, issue 16

Research article

|

26 Aug 2022

Research article |

| 26 Aug 2022

Methane emissions from China: a high-resolution inversion of TROPOMI satellite observations

Zichong Chen, Daniel J. Jacob, Hannah Nesser, Melissa P. Sulprizio, Alba Lorente, Daniel J. Varon, Xiao Lu, Lu Shen, Zhen Qu, Elise Penn, and Xueying Yu

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-10809-2022-supplement

Data sets

Data products Methane TROPOMI http://www.tropomi.eu/data-products/methane

University of Leicester GOSAT Proxy XCH4 v9.0 R. Parker and H. Boesch https://doi.org/10.5285/18ef8247f52a4cb6a14013f8235cc1eb

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Short summary

We quantify methane emissions in China and contributions from different sectors by inverse analysis of 2019 TROPOMI satellite observations of atmospheric methane. We find that anthropogenic methane emissions for China are underestimated in the national inventory. Our estimate of emissions indicates a small life-cycle loss rate, implying net climate benefits from the current coal-to-gas energy transition in China. However, this small loss rate can be misleading given China's high gas imports.