Constraining regional greenhouse gas emissions using geostationary concentration measurements: a theoretical study

Abstract. We investigate the ability of column-integrated trace gas measurements from a geostationary satellite to constrain surface fluxes at regional scale. The proposed GEOCARB instrument measures CO2, CO and CH4 at a maximum resolution of 3 km east–west × 2.7 km north–south. Precisions are 3 ppm for CO2, 10 ppb for CO and 18 ppb for CH4. Sampling frequency is flexible. Here we sample a region at the location of Shanghai every 2 daylight hours for 6 days in June. We test the observing system by calculating the posterior uncertainty covariance of fluxes. We are able to constrain urban emissions at 3 km resolution including an isolated power plant. The CO measurement plays the strongest role; without it our effective resolution falls to 5 km. Methane fluxes are similarly well estimated at 5 km resolution. Estimating the errors for a full year suggests such an instrument would be a useful tool for both science and policy applications.

• Publication year

  2014

• Venue

  Atmospheric Measurement Techniques

• Publication date

  2014-10-02

• Fields of study

  Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.5194/AMT-7-3285-2014
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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