Constraint of anthropogenic NOx emissions in China from different sectors: A new methodology using separate satellite retrievals

Abstract:

A new methodology is developed to constrain
Chinese anthropogenic emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx)
from four major sectors (industry, power plants, mobile and
residential) in July 2008. It combines tropospheric NO2 column
retrievals from GOME-2 and OMI, taking advantage
of their different passing time over China (10:00 a.m. LT
(local time) versus 02:00 p.m.) and consistent retrieval algorithms.
The approach is based on the difference of NOx
columns at the overpass times of the two instruments; it thus
is less susceptible to the likely systematic errors embedded
in individual retrievals that are consistent with each other.
Also, it explicitly accounts for diurnal variations and uncertainties
of NOx emissions for individual sources. Our best
top-down estimate suggests a national budget of 6.8 TgN/yr
(5.5 TgN/yr for East China), close to the a priori bottom-up
emission estimate from the INTEX-B mission for the year of
2006. The top-down emissions are lower than the a priori
near Beijing, in the northeastern provinces and along the east
coast; yet they exceed the a priori over many inland regions.
Systematic errors in satellite retrievals are estimated to lead
to underestimation of top-down emissions by at most 17%
(most likely 10%). Effects of other factors on the top-down
estimate are typically less than 15% each, including lightning,
soil emissions, mixing in planetary boundary layer, anthropogenic
emissions of carbon monoxide and volatile organic
compounds, magnitude of a priori emissions, assumptions
on emission diurnal variations, and uncertainties in the
four sectors. The a posteriori emission budget is 5.7 TgN/yr
for East China.

Notes:

Final Manuscript in DASH