Urban emissions of greenhouse gases and pollutants: Quantifying fluxes for the "urban dome", and impacts at the scale of the neighborhood

Type: Poster presentation

Venue: AGU Fall Meeting 2011

Citation:

S.C. Wofsy, K. McKain, L. Hutyra, M. Brondfield, S.M. Raciti, J.W. Munger, A.L. Dunn, Thomas Nehrkorn, Janusz Eluszkiewicz, J. Ehleringer, E. Crosson, D. Wunch, P.O. Wennberg (2011) Urban emissions of greenhouse gases and pollutants: Quantifying fluxes for the "urban dome", and impacts at the scale of the neighborhood. AGU Fall Meeting 2011

Resource Link: http://sites.agu.org/fallmeeting/scientific-program/

Urban regions represent major sources of greenhouse gases and pollutants to the atmosphere. Measurements and modeling of urban emissions traditionally emphasize air quality and exposure of urban populations to toxic substances. Efforts to monitor greenhouse gas fluxes, to support and verify emissions reduction programs, focus instead on large scale concentration gradients, which typically are an order of magnitude smaller than concentrations near sources. We combine high resolution atmospheric CO₂ measurements with Lagrangian Particle Dispersion models, in several study regions, to address how well urban-scale emissions can be quantified using concentration data from different sensor configurations: at street level, on tall rooftops, and in total column above the city. We present an assessment of the present capability to determine both large scale emission rates and spatial and temporal variations of concentrations at the neighborhood scale using high resolution data and models.