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High-Resolution Modeling to Quantify CO2 Emissions from Industrial Point Sources

In response to the goals of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Paris and Montreal Agreements to reduce Carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions from burning fossil fuels, numerous space-based measurements have been undertaken recently. NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-3 (OCO-3) provides insightful observations of the column-averaged dry air mole fraction of CO 2 (XCO 2 ) around various power plants using the Snapshot Area Maps (SAMs) mode. This study utilizes this data, along with the column version of the Stochastic Time-Inverted Lagrangian Transport (X-STILT) model, which is driven by the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, to estimate emissions from the Bełchatów power plant in Poland, one of the largest fossil fuel-consuming power stations globally. By integrating modelled and observed data and applying a Bayesian inversion approach, which is combined with a priori CO 2 emissions from the Open-source Data Inventory for Anthropogenic CO 2 (ODIAC), this research demonstrates the potential of this framework to estimate CO 2 emissions from power plants and shows the ability of CO 2 imaging satellites to monitor and support climate policies.

Host: Darby Bates
Event series  Brewer-Wilson Seminar Series