Estimating methane emissions from biological and fossil‐fuel sources in the San Francisco Bay Area

We present the first sector‐specific analysis of methane (CH4) emissions from the San Francisco Bay Area (SFBA) using CH4 and volatile organic compound (VOC) measurements from six sites during September – December 2015. We apply a hierarchical Bayesian inversion to separate the biological from fossi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geophysical research letters 2017-01, Vol.44 (1), p.486-495
Main Authors: Jeong, Seongeun, Cui, Xinguang, Blake, Donald R., Miller, Ben, Montzka, Stephen A., Andrews, Arlyn, Guha, Abhinav, Martien, Philip, Bambha, Ray P., LaFranchi, Brian, Michelsen, Hope A., Clements, Craig B., Glaize, Pierre, Fischer, Marc L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Atmospheric models
Atmospheric transport
Atmospheric transport models
Bayesian analysis
Crude oil
Emission
emission inventory
Emissions
Fossil fuels
Fuels
greenhouse gas
Inventories
inverse model
Landfill
Landfills
Methane
Methane emissions
Natural gas
Oil and gas production
Organic compounds
Petroleum
Pollution sources
Probability theory
Stockpiling
Transport
VOCs
Volatile organic compounds
Waste disposal sites
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Summary:We present the first sector‐specific analysis of methane (CH4) emissions from the San Francisco Bay Area (SFBA) using CH4 and volatile organic compound (VOC) measurements from six sites during September – December 2015. We apply a hierarchical Bayesian inversion to separate the biological from fossil‐fuel (natural gas and petroleum) sources using the measurements of CH4 and selected VOCs, a source‐specific 1 km CH4 emission model, and an atmospheric transport model. We estimate that SFBA CH4 emissions are 166–289 Gg CH4/yr (at 95% confidence), 1.3–2.3 times higher than a recent inventory with much of the underestimation from landfill. Including the VOCs, 82 ± 27% of total posterior median CH4 emissions are biological and 17 ± 3% fossil fuel, where landfill and natural gas dominate the biological and fossil‐fuel CH4 of prior emissions, respectively. Key Points Methane and VOCs are used for source apportionment of methane emissions SFBA methane emissions are 1.3‐2.3 times a recent inventory Biological source emissions are higher than fossil‐fuel emissions
ISSN:0094-8276
1944-8007
DOI:10.1002/2016GL071794