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| Titel |
Can UK fossil fuel emissions be determined by radiocarbon measurements? |
| VerfasserIn |
Angelina Wenger, Simon O'Doherty, Matthew Rigby, Alistair Manning, Paul Palmer |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2016
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
en
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 18 (2016) |
| Datensatznummer |
250132921
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 EGU/EGU2016-13474.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| The GAUGE project evaluates different methods to estimate UK emissions. However,
estimating carbon dioxide emissions as a result of fossil fuel burning is challenging
as natural fluxes in and out of the atmosphere are very large. Radiocarbon (14C)
measurements offer a way to specifically measure the amount of recently added
carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning. This is possible as, due to their age, all
the radiocarbon in fossil fuels has decayed. Hence the amount of recently added
CO2 from fossil fuel burning can be measured as a depletion of the 14C content in
air.
While this method has been successfully applied by several groups on a city or a regional
scale, this is the first attempt at using the technique for a national emission estimate.
Geographically the UK, being an island, is a good location for such an experiment. But are
14CO2 measurements the ideal solution for estimating fossil fuel emissions as they are
heralded to be?
Previous studies have shown that 14CO2emissions from the nuclear industry mask the 14C
depletion caused by fossil fuel burning and result in an underestimation of the fossil fuel
CO2. While this might not be a problem in certain regions around the world, many countries
like the UK have a substantial nuclear industry. A correction for this enhancement from the
nuclear industry can be applied but are invariably difficult as 14CO2emissions from nuclear
power plants have a high temporal variability.
We will explain how our sampling strategy was chosen to minimize the influence form the
nuclear industry and why this proved to be challenging. In addition we present the results
from our ground based measurements to show why trying to estimate national emissions
using radiocarbon measurements was overambitious, and how practical the technique is for
the UK in general. |
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