Emissions into the atmosphere from human activities show marked temporal variations, from inter-annual to hourly levels. The consolidated practice of calculating yearly emissions follows the same ...temporal allocation of the underlying annual statistics. However, yearly emissions might not reflect heavy pollution episodes, seasonal trends, or any time-dependant atmospheric process. This study develops high-time resolution profiles for air pollutants and greenhouse gases co- emitted by anthropogenic sources in support of atmospheric modelling, Earth observation communities and decision makers. The key novelties of the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) temporal profiles are the development of (i) country/region- and sector- specific yearly profiles for all sources, (ii) time dependent yearly profiles for sources with inter-annual variability of their seasonal pattern, (iii) country- specific weekly and daily profiles to represent hourly emissions, (iv) a flexible system to compute hourly emissions including input from different users. This work creates a harmonized emission temporal distribution to be applied to any emission database as input for atmospheric models, thus promoting homogeneity in inter-comparison exercises.
Non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOCs) include a large number of chemical species which differ significantly in their chemical characteristics and thus in their impacts on ozone and ...secondary organic aerosol formation. It is important that chemical transport models (CTMs) simulate the chemical transformation of the different NMVOC species in the troposphere consistently. In most emission inventories, however, only total NMVOC emissions are reported, which need to be decomposed into classes to fit the requirements of CTMs. For instance, the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) provides spatially resolved global anthropogenic emissions of total NMVOCs. In this study the EDGAR NMVOC inventory was revised and extended in time and in sectors. Moreover the new version of NMVOC emission data in the EDGAR database were disaggregated on a detailed sector resolution to individual species or species groups, thus enhancing the usability of the NMVOC emission data by the modelling community. Region- and source-specific speciation profiles of NMVOC species or species groups are compiled and mapped to EDGAR processes (detailed resolution of sectors), with corresponding quality codes specifying the quality of the mapping. Individual NMVOC species in different profiles are aggregated to 25 species groups, in line with the common classification of the Global Emissions Initiative (GEIA). Global annual grid maps with a resolution of 0.1° × 0.1° for the period 1970–2012 are produced by sector and species. Furthermore, trends in NMVOC composition are analysed, taking road transport and residential sources in Germany and the United Kingdom (UK) as examples.
•The EDGAR dataset provides decades-long time series of GHG emissions for all world countries.•The EDGAR V5.0 updates CO2 emissions data to 2018 and non-CO2 to 2015.•EDGAR shows an overall upward ...trend for global GHG emissions.•A detailed overview of emission trends and features is provided by gas, by activity sector and by geographical areas.
Over the last three decades, socio-economic, demographic and technological transitions have been witnessed throughout the world, modifying both sectorial and geographical distributions of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Understanding these trends is central to the design of current and future climate change mitigation policies, requiring up-to-date methodologically robust emission inventories such as the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR), the European Commission’s in-house, independent global emission inventory. EDGAR is a key tool to track the evolution of GHG emissions and contributes to quantifying the global carbon budget, providing independent and systematically calculated emissions for all countries.
According to the results of the EDGAR v.5.0 release, total anthropogenic global greenhouse gas emissions (excluding land use, land use change and forestry) were estimated at 49.1 Gt CO2eq in 2015, 50 % higher than in 1990, despite a monotonic decrease in GHG emissions per unit of economic output. Between 1990 and 2015, emissions from developed countries fell by 9%, while emissions from low to medium income countries increased by 130%, predominantly from 2000 onwards. The 27 Member States of the European Union and the United Kingdom led the pathway for emission reductions in industrialised economies whilst, in developing countries, the rise in emissions was driven by higher emissions in China, India, Brazil and nations in the South-East Asian region. This diversity of patterns shows how different patterns for GHG emissions are and the need for identifying regionally tailored emission reduction measures.
Abstract
Between 1970 and 2015 urban population almost doubled worldwide with the fastest growth taking place in developing regions. To aid the understanding of how urbanisation has influenced ...anthropogenic CO
2
and air pollutant emissions across all world regions, we make use of the latest developments of the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research. In this study, we systematically analyse over 5 decades of emissions from different types of human settlements (from urban centres to rural areas) for different sectors in all countries. Our analysis shows that by 2015, urban centres were the source of a third of global anthropogenic greenhouse gases and most of the air pollutant emissions. The high levels of both population and emissions in urban centres therefore call for focused urban mitigation efforts. Moreover, despite the overall increase in urban emissions, megacities with more than 10 million inhabitants in high-income countries have been reducing their emissions, while emissions in developing regions are still growing. We further discuss per capita emissions to compare different types of urban centres at the global level.
The SHERPA tool was used to assess the major pollution sources and the geographical areas impacting on the PM2.5 of the main cities in the Danube and Western Balkans regions. The activity sectors ...influencing most the PM2.5 levels in the study area are energy production (22%), agriculture (19%), residential combustion (16%) and road transport (7%). The energy production in inefficient coal-fuelled power plants was identified as one of main source of PM2.5 in the Western Balkans. As for the geographical origin of PM2.5, the transboundary pollution is confirmed as the main origin of PM2.5 (44%) in the investigated cities, while the city own emissions and the national sources outside the concerned city impact on average 22% and 15%, respectively. An association was observed between the long-range transport and the impact of agriculture and energy production, while both local urban emissions and long-range transport were associated with the residential sector. A special attention is given in this study to biomass, a renewable source, which use is often promoted in the frame of climate and energy policies. Nevertheless, the combustion of biomass in inefficient small appliances has considerable particulate matter emissions and therefore this type of practice impacts negatively on air quality. Considering that biomass is traditionally used in South-East Europe as fuel for residential heating, the interpretation of the model results was supported with the estimation of biomass burning contributions to PM2.5 obtained with receptor models and data on biomass fuel consumption from the literature. The analysis of the contributions from biomass burning derived from receptor models suggests that biomass burning is the dominant source within the residential heating sector in the studied area and that the emissions from this source are likely underestimated. This study concludes that more effort is needed to improve the estimations of biomass burning emissions and that policies to improve air quality in the cities should involve a geographic context wider than the city level.
•The SHERPA tool based on EMEP model and emissions was used for source quantification•The residential sector impact was compared with biomass burning receptor model data•Coal-fuelled power plants are among the main sources of PM2.5 in the Western Balkans•Biomass burning is the dominant source within the residential heating sector•Transboundary pollution is associated with agriculture and energy sectors
This study aims to understand the impact of previous air quality improvement policies on historical emission changes by examining long-term emission trends in Korea. Annual emissions from 2000 to ...2018 were estimated using Korea’s official emissions inventory, the Clean Air Policy Support System (CAPSS). To ensure a consistent comparison, standardization of the method for calculating emissions and unification of the reported emission sectors were conducted each year. Furthermore, Korea’s emissions history was compared with that of neighboring countries, such as China and Japan. The annual emissions of these countries were acquired from the HTAPv3 emissions inventory, an international long-term emission trend study. For comparison, the emission source classification of Korea was matched with that of HTAPv3. As a result of the analysis, NO
x
and SO
x
emissions in Korea have shown decreasing trends, whereas VOCs (volatile organic compounds) have indicated a gradual increasing trend since 2000. Compared to the previous period of implementing South Korea’s air quality improvement policy, changes in NOx and SOx emissions, which are combustion-related pollutants, showed a relationship with the policy’s timeline. However, non-combustion-related pollutants such as VOCs did not exhibit such a relationship. It was concluded that the related policies were not as effective in reducing VOCs as planned in the policy. By comparing the emission trends of Japan, Korea, and China, it was confirmed that Japan was the first country to experience a decrease in combustion-related pollutants emissions, followed by Korea and China. Additionally, combustion-related pollutants decreased in all three countries, whereas VOCs decreased only in Japan. VOC is a precursor material generating secondary PM
2.5
and Ozone; considering that, if relevant policies are additionally implemented to control future PM
2.5
concentrations, and to reduce emissions efficiently and effectively, Japan’s VOC reduction policies can be applied to Korea’s emission reduction policies. These results are expected to serve as important references when establishing future air quality improvement policies in Korea.
Precise and high-resolution carbon dioxide (CO2) emission data is of great importance in achieving carbon neutrality around the world. Here we present for the first time the near-real-time Global ...Gridded Daily CO2 Emissions Dataset (GRACED) from fossil fuel and cement production with a global spatial resolution of 0.1° by 0.1° and a temporal resolution of 1 day. Gridded fossil emissions are computed for different sectors based on the daily national CO2 emissions from near-real-time dataset (Carbon Monitor), the spatial patterns of point source emission dataset Global Energy Infrastructure Emissions Database (GID), Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR), and spatiotemporal patters of satellite nitrogen dioxide (NO2) retrievals. Our study on the global CO2 emissions responds to the growing and urgent need for high-quality, fine-grained, near-real-time CO2 emissions estimates to support global emissions monitoring across various spatial scales. We show the spatial patterns of emission changes for power, industry, residential consumption, ground transportation, domestic and international aviation, and international shipping sectors from January 1, 2019, to December 31, 2020. This gives thorough insights into the relative contributions from each sector. Furthermore, it provides the most up-to-date and fine-grained overview of where and when fossil CO2 emissions have decreased and rebounded in response to emergencies (e.g., coronavirus disease 2019 COVID-19) and other disturbances of human activities of any previously published dataset. As the world recovers from the pandemic and decarbonizes its energy systems, regular updates of this dataset will enable policymakers to more closely monitor the effectiveness of climate and energy policies and quickly adapt.
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•We present the first near-real-time Global Gridded Daily CO2 Emissions Dataset (GRACED)•GRACED can be updated in near real time with a spatial resolution of 0.1° and a temporal resolution of 1 day•GRACED shows gridded emissions of seven sectors: power, industry, residential consumption, ground transport, domestic aviation, international aviation, and international shipping•Regular updates of GRACED will enable policymakers to more closely monitor the effectiveness of climate and energy policies and quickly adapt on various spatial scales
In this paper we run the EMEP air quality model with 3 state-of-the-art emission inventories for Europe, that is to say with CAMS-REG-AP, EMEP emissions, and EDGAR. The main aim of the work is to ...evaluate if the EDGAR inventory (despite its global coverage and independent approach to emission evaluation) is accurate enough, to be used for air quality modelling in Europe. To do so, the EMEP model has been run for the entire year 2015 using the 3 aforementioned emission inventories, and the resulting concentrations have been compared with ‘background’ monitoring stations. Results show that the air quality model, run with the 3 emission inventories, provide similar results despite important differences in emissions. EDGAR emissions provide slightly better validation results for PM2.5, while the EMEP emissions lead to slightly better results for yearly average NO2. The main differences among the model applications arise in the Eastern part of Europe, where the deviations between the officially estimated emissions and those independently evaluated by EDGAR are more important. Results suggest that EDGAR, despite being a methodology aimed at global coverage, with independent sources for activity level, technologies and emission factors and generic gridding practices, can be effectively used for air quality modelling in Europe. The EDGAR dataset (v5.0) used in this paper is available at: https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.921922.
•We run the EMEP air quality model with 3 different emission inventories.•Specifically, we use CAMS, EMEP and EDGAR emissions, at 2015.•Concentration results have been compared with ‘background’ monitoring stations.•The EMEP model, run with the 3 emission inventories, provides similar results.•Results suggest that EDGAR can be effectively used for air quality modelling in Europe.
We present a near-real-time global gridded daily CO
emissions dataset (GRACED) throughout 2021. GRACED provides gridded CO
emissions at a 0.1° × 0.1° spatial resolution and 1-day temporal resolution ...from cement production and fossil fuel combustion over seven sectors, including industry, power, residential consumption, ground transportation, international aviation, domestic aviation, and international shipping. GRACED is prepared from the near-real-time daily national CO
emissions estimates (Carbon Monitor), multi-source spatial activity data emissions and satellite NO
data for time variations of those spatial activity data. GRACED provides the most timely overview of emissions distribution changes, which enables more accurate and timely identification of when and where fossil CO
emissions have rebounded and decreased. Uncertainty analysis of GRACED gives a grid-level two-sigma uncertainty of value of ±19.9% in 2021, indicating the reliability of GRACED was not sacrificed for the sake of higher spatiotemporal resolution that GRACED provides. Continuing to update GRACED in a timely manner could help policymakers monitor energy and climate policies' effectiveness and make adjustments quickly.
In this manuscript, we evaluated different emission scenarios for light-duty road transport to evaluate their impact on air quality in the EU, with a focus on a number of cities by means of the EMEP ...(European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme) modelling system. In addition to the reference case scenario, where exhaust emission factors from COPERT (Computer Programme to calculate Emissions from Road Transport) corresponding to the existing fleet were used, we also tested future potential scenarios considering: (a) all passenger cars and light commercial vehicles meet the EURO 6 emissions standard and EDGAR (Emission Database for Global Atmospheric research) EURO 6 emission factors; (b) all passenger cars and light commercial vehicles meet the EURO 6 emissions standard and real-world emission factors derived from actual Euro 6d-TEMP/6d vehicles. Results show how the replacement of old vehicles by newer ones with better emission control technologies can help improve air quality in the EU in terms of reductions in NO2 and PM2.5 concentrations. However, reduced NOx emissions in cities (as foreseen in the two scenarios analysed) will cause tropospheric O3 to increase.
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