Primary aerosol emission trends for China, 1990–2005

Abstract. An inventory of anthropogenic primary aerosol emissions in China was developed for 1990–2005 using a technology-based approach. Taking into account changes in the technology penetration within industry sectors and improvements in emission controls driven by stricter emission standards, a dynamic methodology was derived and implemented to estimate inter-annual emission factors. Emission factors of PM2.5 decreased by 7%–69% from 1990 to 2005 in different industry sectors of China, and emission factors of TSP decreased by 18%–80% as well. Emissions of PM2.5, PM10 and TSP presented similar trends: increased in the first six years of 1990s and decreased until 2000, then increased again in the following years. Emissions of TSP reached a historical high (35.5 Tg) in 1996, while the peak of PM10 (18.8 Tg) and PM2.5 (12.7 Tg) emissions occurred in 2005. Although various emission trends were identified across sectors, the cement industry and biofuel combustion in the residential sector were consistently the largest sources of PM2.5 emissions, accounting for 53%–62% of emission over the study period. The non-metallic mineral product industry, including the cement, lime and brick industries, accounted for 54%–63% of national TSP emissions. There were no significant trends of BC and OC emissions until 2000, but the increase after 2000 brought the historical high of BC (1.51 Tg) and OC (3.19 Tg) emissions in 2005. Although significant improvements in the estimation of primary aerosols are presented, there still exist large uncertainties. More accurate and detailed activity information and emission factors based on local tests are essential to further improve emission estimates, this especially being so for the brick and coke industries, as well as for coal-burning stoves and biofuel usage in the residential sector.

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Primary anthropogenic aerosol emission trends for China, 1990–2005

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ◽

10.5194/acp-11-931-2011 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 11 (3) ◽

pp. 931-954 ◽

Cited By ~ 308

Author(s):

Y. Lei ◽

Q. Zhang ◽

K. B. He ◽

D. G. Streets

Keyword(s):

Emission Factors ◽

Cement Industry ◽

Anthropogenic Aerosol ◽

Residential Sector ◽

Aerosol Emission ◽

Metallic Mineral ◽

Aerosol Emissions ◽

Industry Sectors ◽

Mineral Product ◽

Activity Information

Abstract. An inventory of anthropogenic primary aerosol emissions in China was developed for 1990–2005 using a technology-based approach. Taking into account changes in the technology penetration within industry sectors and improvements in emission controls driven by stricter emission standards, a dynamic methodology was derived and implemented to estimate inter-annual emission factors. Emission factors of PM2.5 decreased by 7%–69% from 1990 to 2005 in different industry sectors of China, and emission factors of TSP decreased by 18%–80% as well, with the measures of controlling PM emissions implemented. As a result, emissions of PM2.5 and TSP in 2005 were 11.0 Tg and 29.7 Tg, respectively, less than what they would have been without the adoption of these measures. Emissions of PM2.5, PM10 and TSP presented similar trends: they increased in the first six years of 1990s and decreased until 2000, then increased again in the following years. Emissions of TSP peaked (35.5 Tg) in 1996, while the peak of PM10 (18.8 Tg) and PM2.5 (12.7 Tg) emissions occurred in 2005. Although various emission trends were identified across sectors, the cement industry and biofuel combustion in the residential sector were consistently the largest sources of PM2.5 emissions, accounting for 53%–62% of emissions over the study period. The non-metallic mineral product industry, including the cement, lime and brick industries, accounted for 54%–63% of national TSP emissions. There were no significant trends of BC and OC emissions until 2000, but the increase after 2000 brought the peaks of BC (1.51 Tg) and OC (3.19 Tg) emissions in 2005. Although significant improvements in the estimation of primary aerosols are presented here, there still exist large uncertainties. More accurate and detailed activity information and emission factors based on local tests are essential to further improve emission estimates, this especially being so for the brick and coke industries, as well as for coal-burning stoves and biofuel usage in the residential sector.

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Spatially Resolved Emission Factors to Reduce Uncertainties in Air Pollutant Emission Estimates from the Residential Sector

Environmental Science & Technology ◽

10.1021/acs.est.0c08568 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 55 (8) ◽

pp. 4483-4493

Author(s):

Xinlei Liu ◽

Guofeng Shen ◽

Laiguo Chen ◽

Zhe Qian ◽

Ningning Zhang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Emission Factors ◽

Air Pollutant ◽

Pollutant Emission ◽

Residential Sector ◽

Spatially Resolved

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The local and remote atmospheric impacts of Africa’s 21st century aerosol emission trajectory

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-14417 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Chris Wells ◽

Apostolos Voulgarakis

Keyword(s):

Regional Climate ◽

Emission Region ◽

Anthropogenic Aerosol ◽

Remote Locations ◽

Aerosol Emission ◽

Radiation Fluxes ◽

The World ◽

Aerosol Emissions ◽

The Impact ◽

Lower Biomass

Aerosols are a major climate forcer, but their historical effect has the largest uncertainty of any forcing; their mechanisms and impacts are not well understood. Due to their short lifetime, aerosols have large impacts near their emission region, but they also have effects on the climate in remote locations. In recent years, studies have investigated the influences of regional aerosols on global and regional climate, and the mechanisms that lead to remote responses to their inhomogeneous forcing. Using the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway scenarios (SSPs), transient future experiments were performed in UKESM1, testing the effect of African emissions following the SSP3-RCP7.0 scenario as the rest of the world follows SSP1-RCP1.9, relative to a global SSP1-RCP1.9 control. SSP3 sees higher direct anthropogenic aerosol emissions, but lower biomass burning emissions, over Africa. Experiments were performed changing each of these sets of emissions, and both. A further set of experiments additionally accounted for changing future CO2 concentrations, to investigate the impact of CO2 on the responses to aerosol perturbations. Impacts on radiation fluxes, temperature, circulation and precipitation are investigated, both over the emission region (Africa), where microphysical effects dominate, and remotely, where dynamical influences become more relevant.&#160;

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Highly-controlled, reproducible measurements of aerosol emissions from African biomass combustion

10.5194/acp-2017-679 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Sophie L. Haslett ◽

J. Chris Thomas ◽

William T. Morgan ◽

Rory Hadden ◽

Dantong Liu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Black Carbon ◽

Thermal Environment ◽

Organic Aerosol ◽

Biomass Combustion ◽

Particulate Emissions ◽

Radiative Balance ◽

Mass Spectral ◽

Aerosol Emission ◽

Flaming Combustion ◽

Aerosol Emissions

Abstract. Particulate emissions from biomass burning can both alter the atmosphere's radiative balance and cause significant harm to human health. However, due to the large effect on emissions caused by even small alterations to the way in which a fuel burns, it is difficult to study particulate production of biomass combustion mechanistically and in a repeatable manner. In order to address this gap, in this study, small wood samples sourced from Côte D'Ivoire in West Africa were burned in a highly-controlled laboratory environment. The shape and mass of samples, available airflow and surrounding thermal environment were carefully regulated. Organic aerosol and refractory black carbon emissions were measured in real time using an Aerosol Mass Spectrometer and a Single Particle Soot Photometer, respectively. This methodology produced remarkably repeatable results, allowing aerosol emissions to be mapped directly onto different phases of combustion. Emissions from pyrolysis were visible as a distinct phase before flaming was established. After flaming combustion was initiated, a black-carbon-dominant flame was observed during which very little organic aerosol was produced, followed by a period that was dominated by organic-carbon-producing smouldering combustion, despite the presence of residual flaming. During pyrolysis and smouldering, the two phases producing organic aerosol, distinct mass spectral signatures that correspond to previously-reported variations in biofuel emissions measured in the atmosphere are found. Organic aerosol emission factors averaged over an entire combustion event were found to be representative of the time spent in the pyrolysis and smouldering phases, rather than reflecting a coupling between emissions and the mass loss of the sample. Further exploration of aerosol yields from similarly carefully controlled fires and a careful comparison with data from macroscopic fires and real-world emissions will help to deliver greater constraints on variability of particulate emissions in atmospheric systems.

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Supplementary material to "Aerosol emission factors from traditional biomass cookstoves in India: Insights from field measurements"

10.5194/acp-2017-291-supplement ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Apoorva Pandey ◽

Sameer Patel ◽

Shamsh Pervez ◽

Suresh Tiwari ◽

Gautam Yadama ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Field Measurements ◽

Emission Factors ◽

Aerosol Emission ◽

Supplementary Material ◽

Biomass Cookstoves

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Aerosol emission of child voices during speaking, singing and shouting

10.1101/2020.09.17.20196733 ◽

2020 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Dirk Muerbe ◽

Martin Kriegel ◽

Julia Lange ◽

Lukas Schumann ◽

Anne Hartmann ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Risk Management ◽

Music Education ◽

Management Strategies ◽

Reliable Data ◽

Educational Context ◽

Emission Rates ◽

Children And Young People ◽

Aerosol Emission ◽

Risk Management Strategies ◽

Aerosol Emissions

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, singing activities for children and young people have been strictly regulated with far-reaching consequences for music education in schools and ensemble and choir singing in some places. This is also due to the fact, that there has been no reliable data available on aerosol emissions from children's speaking, singing, and shouting. By utilizing a laser particle counter in cleanroom conditions we show, that children emit fewer aerosols during singing than what has been known so far for adults. In our data, the emission rates ranged from 16 P/s to 267 P/s for speaking, 141 P/s to 1240 P/s for singing, and 683 P/s to 4332 P/s for shouting. The data advocate an adaptation of existing risk management strategies and rules of conduct for groups of singing children, like gatherings in an educational context, e.g. singing lessons or choir rehearsals.

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Bias in CMIP6 models as compared to observed regional dimming and brightening

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ◽

10.5194/acp-20-16023-2020 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 20 (24) ◽

pp. 16023-16040

Author(s):

Kine Onsum Moseid ◽

Michael Schulz ◽

Trude Storelvmo ◽

Ingeborg Rian Julsrud ◽

Dirk Olivié ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Sulfur Dioxide ◽

Surface Energy ◽

Coupled Model ◽

Shortwave Radiation ◽

Anthropogenic Aerosol ◽

Surface Energy Fluxes ◽

Aerosol Emission ◽

Wrong Reason ◽

The Right ◽

Aerosol Emissions

Abstract. Anthropogenic aerosol emissions have increased considerably over the last century, but climate effects and quantification of the emissions are highly uncertain as one goes back in time. This uncertainty is partly due to a lack of observations in the pre-satellite era, making the observations we do have before 1990 additionally valuable. Aerosols suspended in the atmosphere scatter and absorb incoming solar radiation and thereby alter the Earth's surface energy balance. Previous studies show that Earth system models (ESMs) do not adequately represent surface energy fluxes over the historical era. We investigated global and regional aerosol effects over the time period 1961–2014 by looking at surface downwelling shortwave radiation (SDSR). We used observations from ground stations as well as multiple experiments from eight ESMs participating in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Version 6 (CMIP6). Our results show that this subset of models reproduces the observed transient SDSR well in Europe but poorly in China. We suggest that this may be attributed to missing emissions of sulfur dioxide in China, sulfur dioxide being a precursor to sulfate, which is a highly reflective aerosol and responsible for more reflective clouds. The emissions of sulfur dioxide used in the models do not show a temporal pattern that could explain observed SDSR evolution over China. The results from various aerosol emission perturbation experiments from DAMIP, RFMIP and AerChemMIP show that only simulations containing anthropogenic aerosol emissions show dimming, even if the dimming is underestimated. Simulated clear-sky and all-sky SDSR do not differ greatly, suggesting that cloud cover changes are not a dominant cause of the biased SDSR evolution in the simulations. Therefore we suggest that the discrepancy between modeled and observed SDSR evolution is partly caused by erroneous aerosol and aerosol precursor emission inventories. This is an important finding as it may help interpret whether ESMs reproduce the historical climate evolution for the right or wrong reason.

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Global fire emissions estimates during 1997–2015

10.5194/essd-2016-62 ◽

2017 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Guido R. van der Werf ◽

James T. Randerson ◽

Louis Giglio ◽

Thijs T. van Leeuwen ◽

Yang Chen ◽

...

Keyword(s):

North America ◽

Fuel Consumption ◽

Fire Severity ◽

Emission Factors ◽

Trace Gas ◽

Burned Area ◽

Biogeochemical Model ◽

Fire Dynamics ◽

Fire Emissions ◽

Aerosol Emissions

Abstract. Climate, land use, and other anthropogenic and natural drivers have the potential to influence fire dynamics in many regions. To develop a mechanistic understanding of the changing role of these drivers and their impact on atmospheric composition, long term fire records are needed that fuse information from different satellite and in-situ data streams. Here we describe the fourth version of the Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED) and quantify global fire emissions patterns during 1997–2015. The modeling system, based on the Carnegie-Ames-Stanford-Approach (CASA) biogeochemical model, has several modifications from the previous version and uses higher quality input datasets. Significant upgrades include: 1) new burned area estimates with contributions from small fires, 2) a revised fuel consumption parameterization optimized using field observations, 3) modifications that improve the representation of fuel consumption in frequently burning landscapes, and 4) fire severity estimates that better represent continental differences in burning processes across boreal regions of North America and Eurasia. The new version has a higher spatial resolution (0.25°) and uses a different set of emission factors that separately resolves trace gas and aerosol emissions from temperate and boreal forest ecosystems. Global mean carbon emissions using the burned area dataset with small fires (GFED4s) were 2.2 x 1015 grams carbon per year (Pg C yr-1) during 1997–2015, with a maximum in 1997 (3.0 Pg C yr-1) and minimum in 2013 (1.8 Pg C yr-1). These estimates were 11 % higher than our previous estimates (GFED3) during 1997–2011, when the two datasets overlapped. This increase was the result of a substantial increase in burned area (37 %), mostly due to the inclusion of small fires, and a modest decrease in mean fuel consumption (–19 %) to better match estimates from field studies, primarily in savannas and grasslands. For trace gas and aerosol emissions, differences between GFED4s and GFED3 were often larger due to the use of revised emission factors. If small fire burned area was excluded (GFED4 without the "s" for small fires), average emissions were 1.5 Pg C yr-1. The addition of small fires had the largest impact on emissions in temperate North America, Central America, Europe, and temperate Asia. Our improved dataset provides an internally consistent set of burned area and emissions that may contribute to a better understanding of multi-decadal changes in fire dynamics and their impact on the Earth System. GFED data is available from http://www.globalfiredata.org.

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