Monthly direct and indirect greenhouse gases emissions from household consumption in the major Japanese cities

Urban household consumption contributes substantially to global greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions. Urban household emissions encompass both direct and indirect emissions, with the former associated with the direct use of fossil fuels and the latter with the emissions embodied in the consumed goods and services. However, there is a lack of consistent and comprehensive datasets outlining in great detail emissions from urban household consumption. To bridge this data gap, we construct an emission inventory of urban household emissions for 52 major cities in Japan that covers around 500 emission categories. The dataset spans from January 2011 to December 2015 and contains 12,384 data records for direct emissions and 1,543,128 records for indirect emissions. Direct emission intensity is provided in g-CO2/JPY to facilitate both future studies of household emission in Japan, as well as act as a reference for the development of detailed household emission inventories in other countries.

Observational appearances of a f(R) global monopole black hole illuminated by various accretions

In this paper, we explore three simple models of accretions on a global monopole black hole in f(R) theory, and numerically study the corresponding observational appearances as seen by an observer located at the asymptotic infinity and the certain region out of black hole. For the thin-disk accretion, the results here show that the brighter lensing ring and the darker photon ring that around black hole shadow, always make a small contribution and a negligible contribution to total observed intensity respectively. While, the direct emission of disk contributes a dominant part, and the size of shadow always depends on the disk’s location. For the static and infalling spherical accretions, it turns out that the radiuses of the shadows and photon spheres are always same for both accretions, which implies that the boundary of shadow represents the signature of the spacetime geometry in this case. However, we also find that the brightness of shadow in infalling accretion is darker than that in static case since the Doppler effect is taken into account. In addition, the effect of the global monopole parameter $$\eta $$ η and f(R) parameter $$\psi _0$$ ψ 0 on observational appearances of black hole are clearly emphasized throughout of this paper. Finally, we conclude that black hole shadows and the related rings with some different observable features can be used for us to distinguish black holes from different gravity theories and set the upper limits to the f(R) parameter $$\psi _0$$ ψ 0 .

Assessment of Greenhouse Gases Emission in Maize-Wheat Cropping System Under Varied N Fertilizer Application Using Cool Farm Tool

In recent decades, climate change induced by enhanced global warming is one of the biggest challenges at the global level. Agriculture sectors significantly contribute to total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission to the atmosphere. Wheat and maize, cultivated globally, and consumed in different forms, are considered as crucial staple cereal for ensuring food security to global population. The management practices involving land preparation, sowing, fertilizer application, irrigation, pest management, etc. significantly influence the emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrous oxide (N2O) from agricultural soil. In this study, CO2 and N2O emission were assessed from maize and wheat crops at four different levels of N fertilizer using cool farm tool model. Emissions of CO2 per hectare varied from 331.4 to 1,088.3 kgCO2 in maize and ranged from 292.3 to 765.3 kgCO2 in wheat on application of different doses of N. The total GHG emission in maize crops ranged from 859.5 to 3,003.4 kgCO2 eq per hectare with the application of nitrogen at varying levels (0–240 kg N per hectare). The highest N2O efflux (0.368 kg per ton) was observed at 240 kg N per hectare under wheat crop. The total on-farm emissions, through fertilizer production, account for about 33.7%, and emission of N2O contributes only 65.9%, whereas pesticides account merely 0.4% under maize-wheat cropping. This study confirms that the direct emission of N2O was totally dependent on N fertilizers application rate; however, the indirect emission was controlled by the fuels and energy consumption.

Towards an improved understanding of nitrogen dioxide emissions from forest fires

<p>Smoke from wildfires are a significant source of air pollution, which can adversely impact ecosystems and the air quality in downwind populated areas. With increasing severity of wildfires over the years, these are a significant threat to air quality in densely populated areas. Emissions from wildfires are most commonly estimated by a bottom-up approach, using proxies such fuel type, burn area, and emission factors. Emissions are also commonly derived with a top-down approach, using satellite observed Fire Radiative Power. Furthermore, wildfire emissions can also be estimated directly from satellite-borne measurements.</p><p>Here, we present advancements and improvements of direct emission estimates of forest fire NO<sub>x</sub> emissions by using TROPOMI (Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument) high-resolution satellite datasets, including NO<sub>2</sub> vertical column densities (VCDs) and information on plume height and aerosol scattering.  The effect of smoke aerosols on the sensitivity of TROPOMI to NO<sub>2 </sub>(via air mass factors) is estimated with recalculated VCDs, and validated with aircraft observations. Different top-down emission estimation methods are tested on synthetic data to determine the accuracy, and the sensitivity to parameters, such as wind fields, satellite sampling, instrument noise, NO<sub>2</sub>:NO<sub>x</sub> conversion ratio, species atmosphere lifetime and plume spread. Lastly, the top-down, bottom-up and direct emission estimates of fire emissions are quantitatively compared.</p>

Radioactivity of soil in Croatia I: naturally occurring decay chains

The assessment of environmental radioactivity much relies on radionuclide content in soil. This stems from the significant contribution of soil to both external and internal exposure to ionising radiation via direct emission of gamma radiation and soil-to-plant radionuclide transfer, respectively. This motivated us to carry out a systematic research on the radioactivity of soil in Croatia to obtain relevant data that can be used as a basis for understanding the related effects of geomorphological, biogeographical, and climatological properties of the environment. We collected samples of the surface layer of uncultivated soil (0–10 cm) at 138 sites from all over the country and measured them for radionuclide activity concentrations by means of high-resolution gamma-ray spectrometry. This resulted in radioactivity maps containing data on activity concentrations of representative radionuclides in the environment. In this paper, which is the first in our two-part presentation, we focus on the naturally occurring 232Th and 238U decay chains and their correlations with the diversity of Croatian regions. For both of the chains, activity concentrations were the highest in the Dinaric region, the lowest in the Pannonian region, and intermediate in the Adriatic region. Relatively high concentrations of 226Ra in the soil of the Dinaric region implied a possibility of an enhanced emanation of its progeny 222Rn into the air. Activity concentrations of 210Pb were additionally elevated in areas with dense vegetation, most probably due to an atmospheric deposition of airborne 210Pb onto the surface of plants and their eventual decomposition on the ground.

Assessing the Environmental Impact and Cost of the Tourism-Induced CO2, NOx, SOx Emission in China

Tourism, as one economic activity, results in a full range of environmental impacts globally as well as in China. However, the evaluation of environmental impacts is insufficient because of the strong correlation effect between tourism and other industries. This study attempted to assess the environmental impact and cost of the tourism-induced pollutant emissions (in a broad sense) at the national scale through constructing the environmental-economic input-output model. Our results suggested that the China’s total emission of CO2, NOx, SOx related to tourism industry increased from 42 × 106 t, 162 kt, 345 kt in 1995 to 157 × 106 t, 527 kt, 854 kt in 2009. The indirect CO2, NOx, and SOx emissions of tourism and related industries were nearly 6.8–11 times of their direct emission in travel agency. Most of these indirect emissions (73% of CO2 in 2009, 54% of NOx in 1995, 62% of SOx in 2009) are derived from the energy plants and industrial sectors. The sustainable tourism should largely depend on the realization of sustainable mobility and transportation, through the low-emission behavior and energy-saving technology. The emission reduction cost of tourism industry in China was 30,170 and 172,812 million CNY in 1995 and 2009, accounting for nearly 14% of the total tourism revenue.