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| Titel |
Verifying the UK N2O emission inventory with tall tower measurements |
| VerfasserIn |
Ed Carnell, Elena Meneguz, Ute Skiba, Tom Misselbrook, Laura Cardenas, Tim Arnold, Alistair Manning, Ulli Dragosits |
| 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 |
250133095
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 EGU/EGU2016-13673.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| Nitrous oxide (N2O) is a key greenhouse gas (GHG), with a global warming potential ∼300
times greater than that of CO2. N2O is emitted from a variety of sources, predominantly from
agriculture. Annual UK emission estimates are reported, to comply with government
commitments under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC). The UK N2O inventory follows internationally agreed protocols and emission
estimates are derived by applying emission factors to estimates of (anthropogenic) emission
sources. This approach is useful for comparing anthropogenic emissions from different
countries, but does not capture regional differences and inter-annual variability associated
with environmental factors (such as climate and soils) and agricultural management. In recent
years, the UK inventory approach has been refined to include regional information into its
emissions estimates (e.g. agricultural management data), in an attempt to reduce
uncertainty.
This study attempts to assess the difference between current published inventory
methodology (default IPCC methodology) and a revised approach, which incorporates the
latest thinking, using data from recent work. For 2013, emission estimates made
using the revised approach were 30 % lower than those made using default IPCC
methodology, due to the use of lower emission factors suggested by recent projects
(www.ghgplatform.org.uk, Defra projects: AC0116, AC0213 and MinNO). The
2013 emissions estimates were disaggregated on a monthly basis using agricultural
management (e.g. sowing dates), climate data and soil properties. The temporally
disaggregated emission maps were used as input to the Met Office atmospheric
dispersion model NAME, for comparison with measured N2O concentrations, at three
observation stations (Tacolneston, E England; Ridge Hill, W England; Mace Head, W
Ireland) in the UK DECC network (Deriving Emissions linked to Climate Change).
The Mace Head site, situated on the west coast of Ireland, was used to establish
baseline concentrations. The trends in the modelled data were found to fit with
the observational data trends, with concentration peaks coinciding with periods
of fertiliser application and land spreading of manures. The model run using the
‘experimental’ approach was found to give a closer agreement with the observed data. |
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