Modeling methane from the North Sea region with ICON-ART

Methane (CH4) is the second most important greenhouse gas after CO2 affecting global warming. Various sources (e.g. fossil fuel production, agriculture and waste, biomass burning and natural wetlands) and sinks (the reaction with the OH-radical as the main sink contributes to tropospheric ozone production) determine the methane budget. Due to its long lifetime in the atmosphere methane can be transported over long distances.Disused and active offshore platforms can emit methane, the amount being difficult to quantify. In addition, explorations of the sea floor in the North Sea showed a release of methane near the boreholes of both, oil and gas producing platforms. The basis of this study is the established emission data base EDGAR (Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research), an inventory that includes methane emission fluxes in the North Sea region. While methane emission fluxes in the EDGAR inventory and platform locations are matching for most of the oil platforms almost all of the gas platform sources are missing in the database. We develop a method for estimating the missing emission sources based on the EDGAR inventory and the known locations of gas platforms as additional point sources will be inserted in the model.In this study the global model ICON-ART (ICOsahedral Nonhydrostatic model - Aerosols and Reactive Trace gases) is used. ART is an online-coupled model extension for ICON that includes chemical gases and aerosols. One aim of the model is the simulation of interactions between the trace substances and the state of the atmosphere by coupling the spatiotemporal evolution of tracers with atmospheric processes. ICON-ART sensitivity simulations are performed with inserted and adjusted sources to access their influence on the methane and OH-radical distribution on regional (North Sea) and global scales.

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Modeling methane from the North Sea region with ICON-ART

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-5028 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Christian Scharun ◽

Roland Ruhnke ◽

Jennifer Schröter ◽

Michael Weimer ◽

Peter Braesicke

Keyword(s):

North Sea ◽

Methane Emission ◽

Ozone Production ◽

Oh Radical ◽

Waste Biomass ◽

Emission Data ◽

The North ◽

Emission Fluxes ◽

The North Sea ◽

Reactive Trace Gases

Methane (CH4) is the second most important greenhouse gas after CO2 affecting global warming. Various sources (e.g. fossil fuel production, agriculture and waste, biomass burning and natural wetlands) and sinks (the reaction with the OH-radical as the main sink contributes to tropospheric ozone production) determine the methane budget. Due to its long lifetime in the atmosphere methane can be transported over long distances.Disused and active offshore platforms can emit methane, the amount being difficult to quantify. In addition, explorations of the sea floor in the North Sea showed a release of methane near the boreholes of both, oil and gas producing platforms. The basis of this study is the established emission data base EDGAR (Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research), an inventory that includes methane emission fluxes in the North Sea region. While methane emission fluxes in the EDGAR inventory and platform locations are matching for most of the oil platforms almost all of the gas platform sources are missing in the database. We develop a method for estimating the missing sources based on the EDGAR emission inventory.In this study the global model ICON-ART (ICOsahedral Nonhydrostatic model - Aerosols and Reactive Trace gases) will be used. ART is an online-coupled model extension for ICON that includes chemical gases and aerosols. One aim of the model is the simulation of interactions between the trace substances and the state of the atmosphere by coupling the spatiotemporal evolution of tracers with atmospheric processes. ICON-ART sensitivity simulations are performed with inserted and adjusted sources to access their influence on the methane and OH-radical distribution on regional (North Sea) and global scales.

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Brake wear from vehicles as an important source of diffuse copper pollution

Water Science & Technology ◽

10.2166/wst.2007.456 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 56 (1) ◽

pp. 223-231 ◽

Cited By ~ 41

Author(s):

J.H.J. Hulskotte ◽

H.A.C. Denier van der Gon ◽

A.J.H. Visschedijk ◽

M. Schaap

Keyword(s):

North Sea ◽

Western Europe ◽

Road Traffic ◽

Emission Data ◽

Deposition Fluxes ◽

Spatially Resolved ◽

The North ◽

Particulate Copper ◽

The North Sea ◽

Brake Wear

In this article we show that brake wear from road traffic vehicles is an important source of atmospheric (particulate) copper concentrations in Europe. Consequently, brake wear also contributes significantly to deposition fluxes of copper to surface waters. We estimated the copper emission due to brake wear to be 2.4 kiloton per year. For comparison, the official database for Europe (without brake wear) totals 2.6 kiloton per year. In Western Europe the brake wear emissions dominate the total emission of copper. Using the spatially resolved emission data, copper distributions over Europe were calculated with the LOTOS-EUROS model. Without brake wear the model underestimates observed copper concentrations by a factor of 3, which is in accordance with other studies. Including the brake wear emissions largely removes the bias. We find that 75% of the atmospheric copper input in the North Sea may be due to brake wear. We estimate that about 25% of the total copper input in the Dutch part of the North Sea stems from brake wear. Although the estimated brake wear copper emission is associated with a large uncertainty, it significantly improves our understanding of the copper cycle in the environment.

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