{"id":116,"date":"2022-08-01T09:55:56","date_gmt":"2022-08-01T08:55:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.fmi.fi\/coe-inverse\/?p=116"},"modified":"2026-01-29T05:04:41","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T05:04:41","slug":"analyzing-local-carbon-dioxide-and-nitrogen-oxide-emissions-from-space-using-the-divergence-method","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.fmi.fi\/coe-inverse\/?p=116","title":{"rendered":"Analyzing Local Carbon Dioxide and Nitrogen Oxide Emissions From Space Using the Divergence Method"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Since the Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015, the role of space-based observations for monitoring anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions has increased. To meet the requirements for monitoring carbon dioxide (CO<sub>2<\/sub>) emissions, the European Copernicus programme is preparing a dedicated CO<sub>2<\/sub> Monitoring (CO2M) satellite constellation that will provide CO<sub>2<\/sub>\u00a0and nitrogen dioxide (NO<sub>2<\/sub>) observations at 4\u00a0km<sup>2<\/sup>\u00a0resolution along a 250\u00a0km wide swath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.fmi.fi\/coe-inverse\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Nayttokuva-2022-7-9-kello-15.52.10-1024x807.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-117\" width=\"631\" height=\"497\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.fmi.fi\/coe-inverse\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Nayttokuva-2022-7-9-kello-15.52.10-1024x807.png 1024w, https:\/\/blog.fmi.fi\/coe-inverse\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Nayttokuva-2022-7-9-kello-15.52.10-300x236.png 300w, https:\/\/blog.fmi.fi\/coe-inverse\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Nayttokuva-2022-7-9-kello-15.52.10-768x605.png 768w, https:\/\/blog.fmi.fi\/coe-inverse\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Nayttokuva-2022-7-9-kello-15.52.10.png 1124w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px\" \/><figcaption>Simulated CO2M observations. Figure by Gerrit Kuhlmann, Empa.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>In a new paper, we adapt the recently developed divergence method to derive both CO<sub>2<\/sub>\u00a0and nitrogen oxide (NO<sub><em>x<\/em><\/sub>) emissions of cities and power plants from a CO2M satellite constellation by using synthetic observations from the COSMO-GHG model. Due to its long lifetime, the large CO<sub>2<\/sub>\u00a0atmospheric background needs to be removed to highlight the anthropogenic enhancements before calculating the divergence. Since the CO<sub>2<\/sub>\u00a0noise levels are large compared to the anthropogenic enhancements, we apply different denoising methods and compare the effect on the CO<sub>2<\/sub>\u00a0emission estimates. The annual NO<sub><em>x<\/em><\/sub>\u00a0and CO<sub>2<\/sub>\u00a0emissions estimated from the divergence maps using the peak fitting approach are in agreement with the expected values, although with larger uncertainties for CO<sub>2<\/sub>. We also consider the possibility to use co-emitted NO<sub><em>x<\/em><\/sub>\u00a0emission estimates for quantifying the CO<sub>2<\/sub>emissions, by using source-specific NO<sub><em>x<\/em><\/sub>-to-CO<sub>2<\/sub>\u00a0emission ratios derived directly from satellite observations. In general, we find that the divergence method provides a promising tool for estimating CO<sub>2<\/sub>\u00a0emissions, alternative to typical methods based on inverse modeling or on the analysis of individual CO<sub>2<\/sub>\u00a0plumes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Reference:<\/strong>\u00a0Janne Hakkarainen, Iolanda Ialongo, Erik Koene, Monika E. Szel\u0105g, Johanna Tamminen, Gerrit Kuhlmann, Dominik Brunner: Analyzing Local Carbon Dioxide and Nitrogen Oxide Emissions From Space Using the Divergence Method: An Application to the Synthetic SMARTCARB Dataset,\u00a0<em>Frontiers in Remote Sensing<\/em>,\u00a0<strong>vol 3<\/strong>, 2022, doi:10.3389\/frsen.2022.878731,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.frontiersin.org\/articles\/10.3389\/frsen.2022.878731\">Link<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since the Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015, the role of space-based observations for monitoring anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions has increased. To meet the requirements for monitoring carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the European Copernicus programme is preparing a dedicated CO2 Monitoring (CO2M) satellite constellation that will provide CO2\u00a0and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) observations at 4\u00a0km2\u00a0resolution &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.fmi.fi\/coe-inverse\/?p=116\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Analyzing Local Carbon Dioxide and Nitrogen Oxide Emissions From Space Using the Divergence Method&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fmi.fi\/coe-inverse\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fmi.fi\/coe-inverse\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fmi.fi\/coe-inverse\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fmi.fi\/coe-inverse\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fmi.fi\/coe-inverse\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=116"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fmi.fi\/coe-inverse\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fmi.fi\/coe-inverse\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions\/118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fmi.fi\/coe-inverse\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fmi.fi\/coe-inverse\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fmi.fi\/coe-inverse\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}