Articles | Volume 25, issue 20
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-13831-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-13831-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
27 Oct 2025
Research article |
| 27 Oct 2025
| 27 Oct 2025
Impact of atmospheric turbulence on the accuracy of point source emission estimates using satellite imagery
Michał Gałkowski
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Department of Biogeochemical Signals, Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany
Faculty of Physics and Applied Computer Science, AGH University of Kraków, Kraków, Poland
Julia Marshall
Institut für Physik der Atmosphäre, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany
Blanca Fuentes Andrade
Institute of Environmental Physics (IUP), Universität Bremen, Bremen, Germany
Christoph Gerbig
Department of Biogeochemical Signals, Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany
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Short summary
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Short summary
Atmospheric model users often overlook the impact of the land–atmosphere interaction. This study accessed various setups of WRF-GHG simulations that ensure consistency between the model and driving reanalysis fields. We found that a combination of nudging and frequent re-initialization allows certain improvement by constraining the soil moisture fields and, through its impact on atmospheric mixing, improves atmospheric transport.
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A novel balloon-borne instrument for direct sun and solar occultation measurements of several UV–Vis absorbing gases (e.g. O3, NO2, BrO, IO, and HONO) is described. Its major design features and performance during two stratospheric deployments are discussed. From the measured overhead BrO concentration and a suitable photochemical correction, total stratospheric bromine is inferred to (17.5 ± 2.2) ppt in air masses which entered the stratosphere around early 2017 ± 1 year.
Dieu Anh Tran, Christoph Gerbig, Christian Rödenbeck, and Sönke Zaehle
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 8413–8440, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8413-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8413-2024, 2024
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The analysis of the atmospheric CO2 record from the Zotino Tall Tower Observatory (ZOTTO) in central Siberia shows significant increases in the length and amplitude of the CO2 uptake and release in the 2010–2021 period. The trend shows a stronger increase in carbon release amplitude compared to the uptake, suggesting that, despite enhanced growing season uptake, during this period climate warming did not elevate the annual net CO2 uptake as cold-season respirations also responded to the warming.
Fabian Maier, Christian Rödenbeck, Ingeborg Levin, Christoph Gerbig, Maksym Gachkivskyi, and Samuel Hammer
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 8183–8203, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8183-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8183-2024, 2024
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We investigate the usage of discrete radiocarbon (14C)-based fossil fuel carbon dioxide (ffCO2) concentration estimates vs. continuous carbon monoxide (CO)-based ffCO2 estimates to evaluate the seasonal cycle of ffCO2 emissions in an urban region with an inverse modeling framework. We find that the CO-based ffCO2 estimates allow us to reconstruct robust seasonal cycles, which show the distinct COVID-19 drawdown in 2020 and can be used to validate emission inventories.
Vishnu Thilakan, Dhanyalekshmi Pillai, Jithin Sukumaran, Christoph Gerbig, Haseeb Hakkim, Vinayak Sinha, Yukio Terao, Manish Naja, and Monish Vijay Deshpande
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 5315–5335, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5315-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5315-2024, 2024
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Mirosław Zimnoch, Michał Gałkowski, Piotr Sekuła, Łukasz Chmura, Jakub Bartyzel, Alina Jasek-Kamińska, Alicja Skiba, Jarosław Nęcki, Przemysław Wachniew, and Paweł Jagoda
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1167, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1167, 2024
Short summary
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The manuscript presents the dataset collected in the urban area of Krakow city containing several measurement campaigns focused on the investigation of vertical CO2 and CH4 profiles supplemented by set of meteorological parameters (e.g. temperature, pressure) measured along the profiles up to ca. 280 m a.g.l. The presented data collection explains the dynamics of the lower atmosphere on a daily and seasonal scale providing the three dimensional dataset that can be used for model validation.
Blanca Fuentes Andrade, Michael Buchwitz, Maximilian Reuter, Heinrich Bovensmann, Andreas Richter, Hartmut Boesch, and John P. Burrows
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 1145–1173, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-1145-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-1145-2024, 2024
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We developed a method to estimate CO2 emissions from localized sources, such as power plants, using satellite data and applied it to estimate CO2 emissions from the Bełchatów Power Station (Poland). As the detection of CO2 emission plumes from satellite data is difficult, we used observations of co-emitted NO2 to constrain the emission plume region. Our results agree with CO2 emission estimations based on the power-plant-generated power and emission factors.
Christian Rödenbeck, Karina E. Adcock, Markus Eritt, Maksym Gachkivskyi, Christoph Gerbig, Samuel Hammer, Armin Jordan, Ralph F. Keeling, Ingeborg Levin, Fabian Maier, Andrew C. Manning, Heiko Moossen, Saqr Munassar, Penelope A. Pickers, Michael Rothe, Yasunori Tohjima, and Sönke Zaehle
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 15767–15782, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-15767-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-15767-2023, 2023
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The carbon dioxide content of the Earth atmosphere is increasing due to human emissions from burning of fossil fuels, causing global climate change. The strength of the fossil-fuel emissions is estimated by inventories based on energy data, but independent validation of these inventories has been recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Here we investigate the potential to validate inventories based on measurements of small changes in the atmospheric oxygen content.
Alina Fiehn, Maximilian Eckl, Julian Kostinek, Michał Gałkowski, Christoph Gerbig, Michael Rothe, Thomas Röckmann, Malika Menoud, Hossein Maazallahi, Martina Schmidt, Piotr Korbeń, Jarosław Neçki, Mila Stanisavljević, Justyna Swolkień, Andreas Fix, and Anke Roiger
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 15749–15765, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-15749-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-15749-2023, 2023
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During the CoMet mission in the Upper Silesian Coal Basin (USCB) ground-based and airborne air samples were taken and analyzed for the isotopic composition of CH4 to derive the mean signature of the USCB and source signatures of individual coal mines. Using δ2H signatures, the biogenic emissions from the USCB account for 15 %–50 % of total emissions, which is underestimated in common emission inventories. This demonstrates the importance of δ2H-CH4 observations for methane source apportionment.
Xinxu Zhao, Jia Chen, Julia Marshall, Michal Gałkowski, Stephan Hachinger, Florian Dietrich, Ankit Shekhar, Johannes Gensheimer, Adrian Wenzel, and Christoph Gerbig
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 14325–14347, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-14325-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-14325-2023, 2023
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We develop a modeling framework using the Weather Research and Forecasting model at a high spatial resolution (up to 400 m) to simulate atmospheric transport of greenhouse gases and interpret column observations. Output is validated against weather stations and column measurements in August 2018. The differential column method is applied, aided by air-mass transport tracing with the Stochastic Time-Inverted Lagrangian Transport (STILT) model, also for an exploratory measurement interpretation.
Matthew J. McGrath, Ana Maria Roxana Petrescu, Philippe Peylin, Robbie M. Andrew, Bradley Matthews, Frank Dentener, Juraj Balkovič, Vladislav Bastrikov, Meike Becker, Gregoire Broquet, Philippe Ciais, Audrey Fortems-Cheiney, Raphael Ganzenmüller, Giacomo Grassi, Ian Harris, Matthew Jones, Jürgen Knauer, Matthias Kuhnert, Guillaume Monteil, Saqr Munassar, Paul I. Palmer, Glen P. Peters, Chunjing Qiu, Mart-Jan Schelhaas, Oksana Tarasova, Matteo Vizzarri, Karina Winkler, Gianpaolo Balsamo, Antoine Berchet, Peter Briggs, Patrick Brockmann, Frédéric Chevallier, Giulia Conchedda, Monica Crippa, Stijn N. C. Dellaert, Hugo A. C. Denier van der Gon, Sara Filipek, Pierre Friedlingstein, Richard Fuchs, Michael Gauss, Christoph Gerbig, Diego Guizzardi, Dirk Günther, Richard A. Houghton, Greet Janssens-Maenhout, Ronny Lauerwald, Bas Lerink, Ingrid T. Luijkx, Géraud Moulas, Marilena Muntean, Gert-Jan Nabuurs, Aurélie Paquirissamy, Lucia Perugini, Wouter Peters, Roberto Pilli, Julia Pongratz, Pierre Regnier, Marko Scholze, Yusuf Serengil, Pete Smith, Efisio Solazzo, Rona L. Thompson, Francesco N. Tubiello, Timo Vesala, and Sophia Walther
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 15, 4295–4370, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-4295-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-4295-2023, 2023
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Accurate estimation of fluxes of carbon dioxide from the land surface is essential for understanding future impacts of greenhouse gas emissions on the climate system. A wide variety of methods currently exist to estimate these sources and sinks. We are continuing work to develop annual comparisons of these diverse methods in order to clarify what they all actually calculate and to resolve apparent disagreement, in addition to highlighting opportunities for increased understanding.
Theertha Kariyathan, Ana Bastos, Julia Marshall, Wouter Peters, Pieter Tans, and Markus Reichstein
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 16, 3299–3312, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-3299-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-3299-2023, 2023
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The timing and duration of the carbon uptake period (CUP) are sensitive to the occurrence of major phenological events, which are influenced by recent climate change. This study presents an ensemble-based approach for quantifying the timing and duration of the CUP and their uncertainty when derived from atmospheric CO2 measurements with noise and gaps. The CUP metrics derived with the approach are more robust and have less uncertainty than when estimated with the conventional methods.
Aparnna Ravi, Dhanyalekshmi Pillai, Christoph Gerbig, Stephen Sitch, Sönke Zaehle, Vishnu Thilakan, and Chandra Shekhar Jha
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-817, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-817, 2023
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We derive high-resolution terrestrial CO2 fluxes over India from 2012 to 2020. This is achieved by utilizing satellite-based vegetation indices and meteorological data in a data-driven biospheric model. The model simulations are improved by incorporating soil variables and SIF retrievals from satellite instruments and relate them to ecosystem productivity across different biomes. The derived flux products better explain the flux variability compared to other existing model estimates.
Saqr Munassar, Guillaume Monteil, Marko Scholze, Ute Karstens, Christian Rödenbeck, Frank-Thomas Koch, Kai U. Totsche, and Christoph Gerbig
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 2813–2828, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-2813-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-2813-2023, 2023
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Using different transport models results in large errors in optimized fluxes in the atmospheric inversions. Boundary conditions and inversion system configurations lead to a smaller but non-negligible impact. The findings highlight the importance to validate transport models for further developments but also to properly account for such errors in inverse modelling. This will help narrow the convergence of gas estimates reported in the scientific literature from different inversion frameworks.
Dominik Brunner, Gerrit Kuhlmann, Stephan Henne, Erik Koene, Bastian Kern, Sebastian Wolff, Christiane Voigt, Patrick Jöckel, Christoph Kiemle, Anke Roiger, Alina Fiehn, Sven Krautwurst, Konstantin Gerilowski, Heinrich Bovensmann, Jakob Borchardt, Michal Galkowski, Christoph Gerbig, Julia Marshall, Andrzej Klonecki, Pascal Prunet, Robert Hanfland, Margit Pattantyús-Ábrahám, Andrzej Wyszogrodzki, and Andreas Fix
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 2699–2728, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-2699-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-2699-2023, 2023
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We evaluated six atmospheric transport models for their capability to simulate the CO2 plumes from two of the largest power plants in Europe by comparing the models against aircraft observations collected during the CoMet (Carbon Dioxide and Methane Mission) campaign in 2018. The study analyzed how realistically such plumes can be simulated at different model resolutions and how well the planned European satellite mission CO2M will be able to quantify emissions from power plants.
Justyna Swolkień, Andreas Fix, and Michał Gałkowski
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 16031–16052, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-16031-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-16031-2022, 2022
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Determination of emissions from coal mines on a local scale requires instantaneous data. We analysed temporal emission data for ventilation shafts and factors influencing their variability. They were saturation of the seams with methane, the permeability of the rock mass, and coal output. The data for the verification should reflect the actual values of emissions from point sources. It is recommended to achieve this by using a standardised emission measurement system for all coal mines.
Vishnu Thilakan, Dhanyalekshmi Pillai, Christoph Gerbig, Michal Galkowski, Aparnna Ravi, and Thara Anna Mathew
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 15287–15312, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-15287-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-15287-2022, 2022
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This paper demonstrates how we can use atmospheric observations to improve the CO2 flux estimates in India. This is achieved by improving the representation of terrain, mesoscale transport, and flux variations. We quantify the impact of the unresolved variations in the current models on optimally estimated fluxes via inverse modelling and quantify the associated flux uncertainty. We illustrate how a parameterization scheme captures this variability in the coarse models.
Elise Potier, Grégoire Broquet, Yilong Wang, Diego Santaren, Antoine Berchet, Isabelle Pison, Julia Marshall, Philippe Ciais, François-Marie Bréon, and Frédéric Chevallier
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 15, 5261–5288, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-5261-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-5261-2022, 2022
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Atmospheric inversion at local–regional scales over Europe and pseudo-data assimilation are used to evaluate how CO2 and 14CO2 ground-based measurement networks could complement satellite CO2 imagers to monitor fossil fuel (FF) CO2 emissions. This combination significantly improves precision in the FF emission estimates in areas with a dense network but does not strongly support the separation of the FF from the biogenic signals or the spatio-temporal extrapolation of the satellite information.
Simone M. Pieber, Béla Tuzson, Stephan Henne, Ute Karstens, Christoph Gerbig, Frank-Thomas Koch, Dominik Brunner, Martin Steinbacher, and Lukas Emmenegger
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 10721–10749, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-10721-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-10721-2022, 2022
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Understanding regional greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere is a prerequisite to mitigate climate change. In this study, we investigated the regional contributions of carbon dioxide (CO2) at the location of the high Alpine observatory Jungfraujoch (JFJ, Switzerland, 3580 m a.s.l.). To this purpose, we combined receptor-oriented atmospheric transport simulations for CO2 concentration in the period 2009–2017 with stable carbon isotope (δ13C–CO2) information.
Fabian Maier, Christoph Gerbig, Ingeborg Levin, Ingrid Super, Julia Marshall, and Samuel Hammer
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 5391–5406, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-5391-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-5391-2022, 2022
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We show that the default representation of point source emissions in WRF–STILT leads to large overestimations when modelling fossil fuel CO2 concentrations for a 30 m high observation site during stable atmospheric conditions. We therefore introduce a novel point source modelling approach in WRF-STILT that takes into account their effective emission heights and results in a much better agreement with observations.
Saqr Munassar, Christian Rödenbeck, Frank-Thomas Koch, Kai U. Totsche, Michał Gałkowski, Sophia Walther, and Christoph Gerbig
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 7875–7892, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-7875-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-7875-2022, 2022
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The results obtained from ensembles of inversions over 13 years show the largest spread in the a posteriori fluxes over the station set ensemble. Using different prior fluxes in the inversions led to a smaller impact. Drought occurrences in 2018 and 2019 affected CO2 fluxes as seen in net ecosystem exchange estimates. Our study highlights the importance of expanding the atmospheric site network across Europe to better constrain CO2 fluxes in inverse modelling.
Sven Krautwurst, Konstantin Gerilowski, Jakob Borchardt, Norman Wildmann, Michał Gałkowski, Justyna Swolkień, Julia Marshall, Alina Fiehn, Anke Roiger, Thomas Ruhtz, Christoph Gerbig, Jaroslaw Necki, John P. Burrows, Andreas Fix, and Heinrich Bovensmann
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 17345–17371, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-17345-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-17345-2021, 2021
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Quantification of anthropogenic CH4 emissions remains challenging, but it is essential for near-term climate mitigation strategies. We use airborne remote sensing observations to assess bottom-up estimates of coal mining emissions from one of Europe's largest CH4 emission hot spots located in Poland. The analysis reveals that emissions from small groups of shafts can be disentangled, but caution is advised when comparing observations to commonly reported annual emissions.
Antoine Berchet, Espen Sollum, Rona L. Thompson, Isabelle Pison, Joël Thanwerdas, Grégoire Broquet, Frédéric Chevallier, Tuula Aalto, Adrien Berchet, Peter Bergamaschi, Dominik Brunner, Richard Engelen, Audrey Fortems-Cheiney, Christoph Gerbig, Christine D. Groot Zwaaftink, Jean-Matthieu Haussaire, Stephan Henne, Sander Houweling, Ute Karstens, Werner L. Kutsch, Ingrid T. Luijkx, Guillaume Monteil, Paul I. Palmer, Jacob C. A. van Peet, Wouter Peters, Philippe Peylin, Elise Potier, Christian Rödenbeck, Marielle Saunois, Marko Scholze, Aki Tsuruta, and Yuanhong Zhao
Geosci. Model Dev., 14, 5331–5354, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-5331-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-5331-2021, 2021
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We present here the Community Inversion Framework (CIF) to help rationalize development efforts and leverage the strengths of individual inversion systems into a comprehensive framework. The CIF is a programming protocol to allow various inversion bricks to be exchanged among researchers.
The ensemble of bricks makes a flexible, transparent and open-source Python-based tool. We describe the main structure and functionalities and demonstrate it in a simple academic case.
Piotr Sekuła, Anita Bokwa, Jakub Bartyzel, Bogdan Bochenek, Łukasz Chmura, Michał Gałkowski, and Mirosław Zimnoch
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 12113–12139, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-12113-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-12113-2021, 2021
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The wind shear generated on a local scale by the diversified relief’s impact can be a factor which significantly modifies the spatial pattern of PM10 concentration. The vertical profile of PM10 over a city located in a large valley during the events with high surface-level PM10 concentrations may show a sudden decrease with height not only due to the increase in wind speed, but also due to the change in wind direction alone. Vertical aerosanitary urban zones can be distinguished.
Ana Maria Roxana Petrescu, Matthew J. McGrath, Robbie M. Andrew, Philippe Peylin, Glen P. Peters, Philippe Ciais, Gregoire Broquet, Francesco N. Tubiello, Christoph Gerbig, Julia Pongratz, Greet Janssens-Maenhout, Giacomo Grassi, Gert-Jan Nabuurs, Pierre Regnier, Ronny Lauerwald, Matthias Kuhnert, Juraj Balkovič, Mart-Jan Schelhaas, Hugo A. C. Denier van der
Gon, Efisio Solazzo, Chunjing Qiu, Roberto Pilli, Igor B. Konovalov, Richard A. Houghton, Dirk Günther, Lucia Perugini, Monica Crippa, Raphael Ganzenmüller, Ingrid T. Luijkx, Pete Smith, Saqr Munassar, Rona L. Thompson, Giulia Conchedda, Guillaume Monteil, Marko Scholze, Ute Karstens, Patrick Brockmann, and Albertus Johannes Dolman
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 13, 2363–2406, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-2363-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-2363-2021, 2021
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This study is topical and provides a state-of-the-art scientific overview of data availability from bottom-up and top-down CO2 fossil emissions and CO2 land fluxes in the EU27+UK. The data integrate recent emission inventories with ecosystem data, land carbon models and regional/global inversions for the European domain, aiming at reconciling CO2 estimates with official country-level UNFCCC national GHG inventories in support to policy and facilitating real-time verification procedures.
Vishnu Thilakan, Dhanyalekshmi Pillai, Christoph Gerbig, Michal Galkowski, Aparnna Ravi, and Thara Anna Mathew
Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2021-392, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2021-392, 2021
Revised manuscript not accepted
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This paper demonstrates how we can make use of atmospheric observations to improve the CO2 flux estimates of India. This is achieved by improving the representation of terrain, mesoscale transport and flux variations. We quantify the impact of unresolved variations in the current models on optimally estimated fluxes via inverse modelling and quantify the associated flux uncertainty. We illustrate how a parameterization scheme captures this variability in the coarse models.
Ashique Vellalassery, Dhanyalekshmi Pillai, Julia Marshall, Christoph Gerbig, Michael Buchwitz, Oliver Schneising, and Aparnna Ravi
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 5393–5414, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-5393-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-5393-2021, 2021
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We investigate factors contributing to the severe and persistent air quality degradation in northern India that has worsened during every winter over the last decade. This is achieved by implementing atmospheric modelling and using recently available Sentinel-5 P satellite data for carbon monoxide. We see a minimal role of biomass burning, except for the state of Punjab. The aim is to focus on residential and industrial emission reduction strategies to tackle air pollution over northern India.
Michael Buchwitz, Maximilian Reuter, Stefan Noël, Klaus Bramstedt, Oliver Schneising, Michael Hilker, Blanca Fuentes Andrade, Heinrich Bovensmann, John P. Burrows, Antonio Di Noia, Hartmut Boesch, Lianghai Wu, Jochen Landgraf, Ilse Aben, Christian Retscher, Christopher W. O'Dell, and David Crisp
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 14, 2141–2166, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-2141-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-2141-2021, 2021
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The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in reduced anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions during 2020 in large parts of the world. We have used a small ensemble of satellite retrievals of column-averaged CO2 (XCO2) to find out if a regional-scale reduction of atmospheric CO2 can be detected from space. We focus on East China and show that it is challenging to reliably detect and to accurately quantify the emission reduction, which only results in regional XCO2 reductions of about 0.1–0.2 ppm.
Michał Gałkowski, Armin Jordan, Michael Rothe, Julia Marshall, Frank-Thomas Koch, Jinxuan Chen, Anna Agusti-Panareda, Andreas Fix, and Christoph Gerbig
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 14, 1525–1544, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-1525-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-1525-2021, 2021
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We present results of atmospheric measurements of greenhouse gases, performed over Europe in 2018 aboard German research aircraft HALO as part of the CoMet 1.0 (Carbon Dioxide and Methane Mission). In our analysis, we describe data quality, discuss observed mixing ratios and show an example of describing a regional methane source using stable isotopic composition based on the collected air samples. We also quantitatively compare our results to selected global atmospheric modelling systems.
Alina Fiehn, Julian Kostinek, Maximilian Eckl, Theresa Klausner, Michał Gałkowski, Jinxuan Chen, Christoph Gerbig, Thomas Röckmann, Hossein Maazallahi, Martina Schmidt, Piotr Korbeń, Jarosław Neçki, Pawel Jagoda, Norman Wildmann, Christian Mallaun, Rostyslav Bun, Anna-Leah Nickl, Patrick Jöckel, Andreas Fix, and Anke Roiger
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 12675–12695, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-12675-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-12675-2020, 2020
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A severe reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is necessary to fulfill the Paris Agreement. We use aircraft- and ground-based in situ observations of trace gases and wind speed from two flights over the Upper Silesian Coal Basin, Poland, for independent emission estimation. The derived methane emission estimates are within the range of emission inventories, carbon dioxide estimates are in the lower range and carbon monoxide emission estimates are slightly higher than emission inventory values.
Cited articles
Ahmadov, R., Gerbig, C., Kretschmer, R., Körner, S., Rödenbeck, C., Bousquet, P., and Ramonet, M.: Comparing high resolution WRF-VPRM simulations and two global CO2 transport models with coastal tower measurements of CO2, Biogeosciences, 6, 807–817, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-6-807-2009, 2009. a
Beck, V., Koch, T., Kretschmer, R., Marshall, J., Ahmadov, R., Gerbig, C., Pillai, D., and Heimann, M.: The WRF Greenhouse Gas Model (WRF-GHG), Technical Report 25, Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany, https://www.bgc-jena.mpg.de/5363366/tech_report25.pdf (last access: 23 October 2025), 2011. a
Bovensmann, H., Buchwitz, M., Burrows, J. P., Reuter, M., Krings, T., Gerilowski, K., Schneising, O., Heymann, J., Tretner, A., and Erzinger, J.: A remote sensing technique for global monitoring of power plant CO2 emissions from space and related applications, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 3, 781–811, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-3-781-2010, 2010. a
Brunner, D., Kuhlmann, G., Marshall, J., Clément, V., Fuhrer, O., Broquet, G., Löscher, A., and Meijer, Y.: Accounting for the vertical distribution of emissions in atmospheric CO2 simulations, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 4541–4559, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-4541-2019, 2019. a
Brunner, D., Kuhlmann, G., Henne, S., Koene, E., Kern, B., Wolff, S., Voigt, C., Jöckel, P., Kiemle, C., Roiger, A., Fiehn, A., Krautwurst, S., Gerilowski, K., Bovensmann, H., Borchardt, J., Galkowski, M., Gerbig, C., Marshall, J., Klonecki, A., Prunet, P., Hanfland, R., Pattantyús-Ábrahám, M., Wyszogrodzki, A., and Fix, A.: Evaluation of simulated CO2 power plant plumes from six high-resolution atmospheric transport models, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 2699–2728, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-2699-2023, 2023. a, b, c
Cambaliza, M. O. L., Shepson, P. B., Caulton, D. R., Stirm, B., Samarov, D., Gurney, K. R., Turnbull, J., Davis, K. J., Possolo, A., Karion, A., Sweeney, C., Moser, B., Hendricks, A., Lauvaux, T., Mays, K., Whetstone, J., Huang, J., Razlivanov, I., Miles, N. L., and Richardson, S. J.: Assessment of uncertainties of an aircraft-based mass balance approach for quantifying urban greenhouse gas emissions, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 14, 9029–9050, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-9029-2014, 2014. a
Chulakadabba, A., Sargent, M., Lauvaux, T., Benmergui, J. S., Franklin, J. E., Chan Miller, C., Wilzewski, J. S., Roche, S., Conway, E., Souri, A. H., Sun, K., Luo, B., Hawthrone, J., Samra, J., Daube, B. C., Liu, X., Chance, K., Li, Y., Gautam, R., Omara, M., Rutherford, J. S., Sherwin, E. D., Brandt, A., and Wofsy, S. C.: Methane point source quantification using MethaneAIR: a new airborne imaging spectrometer, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 16, 5771–5785, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-5771-2023, 2023. a
Conley, S., Faloona, I., Mehrotra, S., Suard, M., Lenschow, D. H., Sweeney, C., Herndon, S., Schwietzke, S., Pétron, G., Pifer, J., Kort, E. A., and Schnell, R.: Application of Gauss's theorem to quantify localized surface emissions from airborne measurements of wind and trace gases, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 10, 3345–3358, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-10-3345-2017, 2017. a
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Eggleston, S., Buendia, L., Miwa, K., Ngara, T., and Tanabe, K.: 2006 IPCC guidelines for national greenhouse gas inventories, vol. 5, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies Hayama, Japan, https://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/public/2006gl/ (last access: 23 October 2025), 2006. a
Fiehn, A., Kostinek, J., Eckl, M., Klausner, T., Gałkowski, M., Chen, J., Gerbig, C., Röckmann, T., Maazallahi, H., Schmidt, M., Korbeń, P., Neçki, J., Jagoda, P., Wildmann, N., Mallaun, C., Bun, R., Nickl, A.-L., Jöckel, P., Fix, A., and Roiger, A.: Estimating CH4, CO2 and CO emissions from coal mining and industrial activities in the Upper Silesian Coal Basin using an aircraft-based mass balance approach, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 12675–12695, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-12675-2020, 2020. a
Frankenberg, C., Thorpe, A. K., Thompson, D. R., Hulley, G., Kort, E. A., Vance, N., Borchardt, J., Krings, T., Gerilowski, K., Sweeney, C., Conley, S., Bue, B. D., Aubrey, A. D., Hook, S. and Green, R. O.: Airborne methane remote measurements reveal heavy-tail flux distribution in Four Corners region, P. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 113, 9734–9739, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1605617113, 2016. a
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Short summary
Observations of greenhouse gas emissions are needed to monitor the progress towards Paris Agreement goals. Remote sensing instruments have been used to estimate emissions from the strongest anthropogenic sources. Here, we study the impact of atmospheric turbulence on the estimation of CO₂ with a realistic atmospheric model, and we show that the formation of persistent plume structures causes uncertainty on the order of 10 % of total emission that cannot be avoided.
Observations of greenhouse gas emissions are needed to monitor the progress towards Paris...
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