Using Space‐Based CO 2 and NO 2 Observations to Estimate Urban CO 2 Emissions

• Published in: Journal of geophysical research. Atmospheres 2023-03, Vol.128 (6)
• Main Authors: Yang, Emily G., Kort, Eric A., Ott, Lesley E., Oda, Tomohiro, Lin, John C.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 2169-897X; 2169-8996
• DOI: 10.1029/2022JD037736

As the majority of fossil fuel carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions originate from cities, the use of novel techniques to leverage available satellite observations of CO 2 and proxy species to constrain urban CO 2 is of great importance. In this study, we seek to empirically determine relationships between satellite observations of CO 2 and the proxy species nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ), applying these relationships to NO 2 fields to generate NO 2 ‐derived CO 2 fields (NDCFs) from which CO 2 emissions can be estimated. We first establish this method using simulations of CO 2 and NO 2 for the cities of Buenos Aires, Melbourne, and Mexico City, finding that the method is viable throughout the year. For the same three cities, we next calculate empirical relationships (slopes) between co‐located observations of NO 2 from the Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument and Snapshot Area Mode observations of CO 2 from Orbiting Carbon Observatory‐3. Applying varying combinations of slopes to generate NDCFs, we evaluate methodological uncertainties for each slope application method and use a simple mass balance method to estimate CO 2 emissions from NDCFs. We demonstrate monthly urban CO 2 emissions estimates that are comparable to emissions inventory estimates. We additionally prove the utility of our method by demonstrating how large uncertainties at a grid cell level (equivalent to ∼1–3 ppm) can be reduced substantially when aggregating emissions estimates from NDCFs generated from all NO 2 swaths (about 1%–6%). Rather than rely on prior knowledge of emission ratios, our method circumvents such assumptions and provides a valuable observational constraint on urban CO 2 emissions. We can improve our understanding of urban fossil fuel carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions by observing gases that are emitted simultaneously with CO 2 when fossil fuels are burned, like nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ). Here, we develop a method to enhance our understanding of urban CO 2 emissions by using relationships between CO 2 and NO 2 , with observations from satellites. In this method, we find relationships between CO 2 and NO 2 when we have observations of both, and then apply these relationships to NO 2 observations lacking corresponding CO 2 observations, thereby generating NO 2 ‐derived CO 2 fields. We can then estimate CO 2 emissions from these NO 2 ‐derived CO 2 fields without any prior assumption of emission ratios of these gases. We first test the method using simulations of these gases for the cit