Project Details
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Mesoscale Network for Monitoring Greenhouse Gas and Pollutant Emissions

Subject Area Atmospheric Science
Measurement Systems
Term from 2019 to 2022
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 419317138
 
Final Report Year 2024

Final Report Abstract

Climate change has a global impact and concerns our living conditions and society. Anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions contribute significantly to the present global warming. The temperature increase should be limited to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, according to the “Paris Agreement”. This requires global efforts. Urban areas emit more than 70 % of CO2 generated by fossil fuel combustion. Accurate methods are required to monitor the carbon flux originating from urban areas and cities to mitigate global warming. To this end, the permanent and automated column concentration measurement network MUCCnet was established. MUCCnet consists of five automated sensor systems, based on Fourier transform infrared spectrometers EM27/SUNs and self-developed enclosures, which are located in and around the city of Munich, Germany. These instruments measure the total concentrations of CO2 and CH4, which is the second-most prevalent anthropogenic GHG, along the slant column towards the sun. From upwind and downwind differences between these observations the GHG emissions of Munich are estimated. Within this project, we have developed, established, operated and maintained the measurement network MUCCnet, retrieved the data, and developed the necessary modelling framework needed to estimate the emissions. Our modelling framework consists of a Eulerian model to simulate the wind fields (in our case the Weather Research & Forecasting model) and a Lagrangeian model to simulate the GHG dispersion (in this case the Stochastic Time-Inverted Lagrangian Transport model). This framework is capable of quantifying emission sources and of detecting unknown sources. In future, it can be installed in other cities and regions. These measurement-based emission data will serve as a basis to monitor and validate the GHG reduction plans of cities, countries, and continents.

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