scholarly journals Anthropogenic and natural controls on atmospheric <i>δ</i><sup>13</sup>C-CO<sub>2</sub> variations in the Yangtze River delta: insights from a carbon isotope modeling framework

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (13) ◽  
pp. 10015-10037
Author(s):  
Cheng Hu ◽  
Jiaping Xu ◽  
Cheng Liu ◽  
Yan Chen ◽  
Dong Yang ◽  
...  

Abstract. The atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) mixing ratio and its carbon isotope (δ13C-CO2) composition contain important CO2 sink and source information spanning from ecosystem to global scales. The observation and simulation for both CO2 and δ13C-CO2 can be used to constrain regional emissions and better understand the anthropogenic and natural mechanisms that control δ13C-CO2 variations. Such work remains rare for urban environments, especially megacities. Here, we used near-continuous CO2 and δ13C-CO2 measurements, from September 2013 to August 2015, and inverse modeling to constrain the CO2 budget and investigate the main factors that dominated δ13C-CO2 variations for the Yangtze River delta (YRD) region, one of the largest anthropogenic CO2 hotspots and densely populated regions in China. We used the WRF-STILT model framework with category-specified EDGAR v4.3.2 CO2 inventories to simulate hourly CO2 mixing ratios and δ13C-CO2, evaluated these simulations with observations, and constrained the total anthropogenic CO2 emission. We show that (1) top-down and bottom-up estimates of anthropogenic CO2 emissions agreed well (bias < 6 %) on an annual basis, (2) the WRF-STILT model can generally reproduce the observed diel and seasonal atmospheric δ13C-CO2 variations, and (3) anthropogenic CO2 emissions played a much larger role than ecosystems in controlling the δ13C-CO2 seasonality. When excluding ecosystem respiration and photosynthetic discrimination in the YRD area, δ13C-CO2 seasonality increased from 1.53 ‰ to 1.66 ‰. (4) Atmospheric transport processes in summer amplified the cement CO2 enhancement proportions in the YRD area, which dominated monthly δs (the mixture of δ13C-CO2 from all regional end-members) variations. These findings show that the combination of long-term atmospheric carbon isotope observations and inverse modeling can provide a powerful constraint on the carbon cycle of these complex megacities.

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (23) ◽  
pp. 23157-23169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheng Hu ◽  
Shoudong Liu ◽  
Yongwei Wang ◽  
Mi Zhang ◽  
Wei Xiao ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheng Hu ◽  
Jiaping Xu ◽  
Cheng Liu ◽  
Yan Chen ◽  
Dong Yang ◽  
...  

Abstract. The atmospheric CO2 mixing ratio and its δ13C-CO2 composition contain important CO2 sink and source information spanning from ecosystem to global scales. The observation and simulation for both CO2 and its carbon isotope ratio (δ13C-CO2) can be used to constrain regional emissions and better understand the anthropogenic and natural mechanisms that control δ13C-CO2 variations. Such work remains rare for urban environments, especially megacities. Here, we used near-continuous CO2 and δ13C-CO2 measurements, from September 2013 to August 2015, and inverse modeling to constrain the CO2 budget and investigate the main factors that dominated δ13C-CO2 variations for the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region, one of the largest anthropogenic CO2 hotspots and densely populated regions in China. We used the WRF-STILT model framework with category-specified EDGAR v432 CO2 inventories to simulate hourly CO2 mixing ratios and δ13C-CO2, evaluated these simulations with observations, and constrained the anthropogenic CO2 emission categories. Our study shows that: (1) Top-down and bottom-up estimates of anthropogenic CO2 emissions agreed well (bias 


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (19) ◽  
pp. 7872
Author(s):  
Yijia Huang ◽  
Jiaqi Zhang ◽  
Jinqun Wu

Rapid urbanization has led to a growing number of environmental challenges in large parts of China, where the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) urban agglomerations serve as a typical example. To evaluate the relationship between environmental sustainability gaps and urbanization in 26 cities of the YRD, this study revisited the environmental sustainability assessment (ESA) by combining the metrics of environmental footprints and planetary boundaries at the city level, and then integrated the footprint-boundary ESA framework into decoupling analysis. The results demonstrated considerable spatiotemporal heterogeneity in the environmental sustainability of water use, land use, carbon emissions, nitrogen emissions, phosphorus emissions and PM2.5 emissions across the YRD cities during the study period 2007–2017. Decoupling analysis revealed a positive sign that more than half of the 26 cities had achieved the decoupling of each category of environmental sustainability gaps from urbanization since 2014, especially for nitrogen and phosphorus emissions. On the basis of ESA and decoupling analysis, all the cities were categorized into six patterns, for which the optimal pathways towards sustainable development were discussed in depth. Our study will assist policy makers in formulating more tangible and differentiated policies to achieve decoupling between environmental sustainability gaps and urbanization.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lei Shu ◽  
Min Xie ◽  
Tijian Wang ◽  
Pulong Chen ◽  
Yong Han ◽  
...  

Abstract. Severe high ozone (O3) episodes usually have close relations to synoptic systems. A regional continuous O3 pollution episode is detected over the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region in China during August 7–12, 2013, in which the O3 concentrations in more than half of the cities exceeding the national air quality standard. The maximum hourly concentration of O3 reaches 167.1 ppb. By means of the observational analysis and the WRF/CMAQ numerical simulation, the characteristics and the essential impact factors of the typical regional O3 pollution is integratedly investigated. The observational analysis shows that the atmospheric subsidence dominated by Western Pacific subtropical high plays a crucial role in the formation of high-level O3. The favorable weather conditions, such as extremely high temperature, low relative humidity and weak wind speed, caused by the abnormal strong subtropical high are responsible for the trapping and the chemical production of O3 in the boundary layer. In addition, when the YRD cities at the front of Typhoon Utor, the periphery circulation of typhoon system can enhance the downward airflows and cause worse air pollution. But when the typhoon system weakens the subtropical high, the prevailing southeasterly surface wind leads to the mitigation of the O3 pollution. The Integrated Process Rate (IPR) analysis incorporated in CMAQ is applied to further illustrate the combined influence of subtropical high and typhoon system in this O3 episode. The results show that the vertical diffusion (VDIF) and the gas-phase chemistry (CHEM) are two major contributors to O3 formation. During the episode, the contributions of VDIF and CHEM to O3 maintain the high values over 10 ppb/h in Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Nanjing. On August 10–11, the cities close to the sea are apparently affected by the typhoon system, with the contribution of VDIF increasing to 28.45 ppb/h in Shanghai and 19.76 ppb/h in Hangzhou. When the YRD region is under the control of the typhoon system, the contribution values of all individual processes decrease to a low level in all cities. These results provide an insight for the O3 pollution synthetically impacted by the Western Pacific subtropical high and the tropical cyclone system.


2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 21507-21540
Author(s):  
X. Fu ◽  
S. X. Wang ◽  
Z. Cheng ◽  
J. Xing ◽  
B. Zhao ◽  
...  

Abstract. During 1 to 6 May 2011, a dust event was observed in the Yangtze River Delta region (YRD). The highest PM10 concentration reached over 1000 μg m−3 and the visibility was below 3 km. In this study, the Community Multi-scale Air Quality modeling system (CMAQ5.0) coupled with an in-line windblown dust model was used to simulate the formation, spatial and temporal characteristics of this dust event, and analyze its impacts on deposition and photochemistry. The threshold friction velocity for loose smooth surface in the dust model was revised based on Chinese data to improve the model performance. The comparison between predictions and observations indicates the revised model can reproduce the transport and pollution of the event. The simulation results show that the dust event was affected by formation and transport of Mongolian cyclone and cold air. Totally about 695 kt dust particles (PM10) were emitted in Xinjiang Province and Mongolia during 28 to 30 April, the dust band swept northern, eastern China and then arrived in the YRD region on 1 May 2011. The transported dust particles increased the mean surface layer concentrations of PM10 in the YRD region by 372% during 1 to 6 May and the impacts weakened from north to south due to the removal of dust particles along the path. Accompanied by high PM concentration, the dry deposition, wet deposition and total deposition of PM10 in the YRD reached 184.7 kt, 172.6 kt and 357.32 kt, respectively. These deposited particles are very harmful because of their impacts on urban environment as well as air quality and human health when resuspending in the atmosphere. Due to the impacts of mineral dust on atmospheric photolysis, the concentrations of O3 and OH were reduced by 1.5% and 3.1% in the whole China, and by 9.4% and 12.1% in the YRD region, respectively. The work of this manuscript is meaningful for understanding the dust emissions in China as well as for the application of CMAQ in Asia. It is also helpful to understand the formation mechanism and impacts of dust pollution in the YRD.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lei Ye ◽  
Lingqian Hu

An outbreak of atypical pneumonia, now called COVID-19 and known to be caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, first detected in Wuhan, Hubei Province of the People’s Republic of China in December 2019 and afterwards rapidly spread worldwide. Wuhan and the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region implemented first-level public health emergency responses to stop the spread of the virus on January 23rd, 2020. We tracked the geographical gravity centre of the disease and calculated spatial autocorrelation to explore the spatiotemporal patterns of distribution of imported and locally disseminated COVID-19 cases under the emergency-response control measure. We also applied polynomial regression analysis to estimate the trend of the COVID-19 in the YRD region before and after the control activities against the spread of the infection were instituted. The results show that the control measures applied have been effective. And, in the YRD region, areas with a large influx of population flow from Wuhan and Hubei Province had high risks of COVID-19. Therefore, identification of the spatiotemporal trends should be the first step when developing effective policies to manage and control any new epidemic. The results are not only informative locally but also useful for the rest of the world.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 8255-8259

Aerosols played an important role in climate change during recent years in China. Many kinds of researches in different areas in China, particularly over the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region in East China is measured during the period from January 2013 to December 2015. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) derived aerosol optical depth (AOD), particulate matter concentrations (PM2.5) and surface black carbon (BCS) was used in this study. Nanjing, Hangzhou, Shanghai, and Ningbo have been selected in this research as they are the major cities of the YRD region that represents different environments. Variation of AOD550, Ångström exponent (AE470-660) and PM2.5 are mainly discussed, and meanwhile, the relationship that exists between them and with the meteorology is also discussed in this work. Apart from this, the impact of visibility and water vapor are also considered to examine the influence on optical properties. The data and analysis indicate that urban cities have a higher value of AOD than rural background cities. High AOD was noticed in summer than in other seasons. AOD usually has a negative relationship with AE, except in summer. Similarly, the PM2.5 has a negative relationship with AOD, whereas, BCS has a positive correlation with AOD. Further, it was observed that the rise in temperature resulted in high AOD concentration. The visibility has negative effect on AOD, whereas, AQI follows similar pattern as that of visibility.


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