4.7 Article

Exploiting satellite measurements to explore uncertainties in UK bottom-up NOx emission estimates

Journal

ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS
Volume 22, Issue 7, Pages 4323-4338

Publisher

COPERNICUS GESELLSCHAFT MBH
DOI: 10.5194/acp-22-4323-2022

Keywords

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Funding

  1. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs through the Applying Earth Observation (EO) to Reduce Uncertainties in Emission Inventories project
  2. UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) [NE/R016518/1]

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Nitrogen oxides are potent air pollutants that directly affect human health and contribute to the formation of other hazardous pollutants. This study uses satellite data to assess the spatiotemporal variability and magnitude of NOx emissions in the United Kingdom and finds a decreasing trend in emissions.
Nitrogen oxides (NOx, NO + NO2) are potent air pollutants which directly impact on human health and which aid the formation of other hazardous pollutants such as ozone (O-3) and particulate matter. In this study, we use satellite tropospheric column nitrogen dioxide (TCNO2) data to evaluate the spatiotemporal variability and magnitude of the United Kingdom (UK) bottom-up National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory (NAEI) NOx emissions. Although emissions and TCNO2 represent different quantities, for UK city sources we find a spatial correlation of similar to 0.5 between the NAEI NOx emissions and TCNO2 from the high-spatial-resolution TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI), suggesting a good spatial distribution of emission sources in the inventory. Between 2005 and 2015, the NAEI total UK NOx emissions and long-term TCNO2 record from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI), averaged over England, show annually decreasing trends of 4.4 % and 2.2 %, respectively. Top-down NOx emissions were derived in this study by applying a simple mass balance approach to TROPOMI-observed downwind NO2 plumes from city sources. Overall, these top-down estimates were consistent with the NAEI, but for larger cities such as London and Birmingham the inventory is significantly (> 25 %) less than the top-down emissions.

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