Title
Multi-source SO2 emission retrievals and consistency of satellite and surface measurements with reported emissions
Author
Fioletov, V.
McLinden, C.A.
Kharol, S.K.
Krotkov, N.A.
Li, C.
Joiner, J.
Moran, M.D.
Vet, R.
Visschedijk, A.J.H.
Denier Van Der Gon, H.A.C.
Publication year
2017
Abstract
Reported sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions from US and Canadian sources have declined dramatically since the 1990s as a result of emission control measures. Observations from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on NASA's Aura satellite and ground-based in situ measurements are examined to verify whether the observed changes from SO2 abundance measurements are quantitatively consistent with the reported changes in emissions. To make this connection, a new method to link SO2 emissions and satellite SO2 measurements was developed. The method is based on fitting satellite SO2 vertical column densities (VCDs) to a set of functions of OMI pixel coordinates and wind speeds, where each function represents a statistical model of a plume from a single point source. The concept is first demonstrated using sources in North America and then applied to Europe. The correlation coefficient between OMI-measured VCDs (with a local bias removed) and SO2 VCDs derived here using reported emissions for 1° by 1° gridded data is 0.91 and the best-fit line has a slope near unity, confirming a very good agreement between observed SO2 VCDs and reported emissions. Having demonstrated their consistency, seasonal and annual mean SO2 VCD distributions are calculated, based on reported point-source emissions for the period 1980-2015, as would have been seen by OMI. This consistency is further substantiated as the emission-derived VCDs also show a high correlation with annual mean SO2 surface concentrations at 50 regional monitoring stations.
Subject
2015 Urban Mobility & Environment
CAS - Climate, Air and Sustainability
ELSS - Earth, Life and Social Sciences
Environment & Sustainability
Environment
Urbanisation
Atmospheric chemistry
Concentration (composition)
Environmental monitoring
Ground-based measurement
In situ measurement
Point source pollution
Satellite imagery
Sulfur dioxide
Sulfur emission
To reference this document use:
http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:a10fed7d-3efe-44c6-9953-bce50ec3b83d
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-12597-2017
TNO identifier
781921
Publisher
Copernicus GmbH
ISSN
1680-7316
Source
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 17 (20), 12597-12616
Document type
article