 |
NARSTO Workshop on Innovative Methods for Emission Inventory Development and Evaluation University of Texas, Austin October 14-17, 2003 |
 |
Assembling Emission Inventories of Primary Carbonaceous Aerosols
D.G. Streets1, T.C. Bond2, G.R. Carmichael3, J.-H. Woo31, and Z. Klimont4
1 Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL
2 National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO
3 University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA
4 International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria
Primary carbonaceous aerosols have become increasingly important in the last few years, because of growing awareness of their important role in global climate change, in addition to their well-known effects on human health. Black carbon (BC), which is closely related to elemental carbon, and organic carbon (OC), which represents a range of organic compounds in aerosol form, are the two components of carbonaceous aerosols. Primary emissions of these species are difficult to estimate for a variety of reasons, and existing global inventories are flawed. Emissions for North America per se are only now being developed. This paper will present results from a new global inventory (Bond, T.C., D.G. Streets, K.F. Yarber, S.M. Nelson, J.-H. Woo, and Z. Klimont, “A Technology-Based Global Inventory of Black and Organic Carbon Emissions from Combustion,” submitted to Journal of Geophysical Research, April 2003). Some of the difficulties encountered in estimating such emissions will be discussed. These include: (a) how to reconcile emission factors for individual source types, when these may have been developed by unreliable and incompatible measurement techniques; (b) how to relate emissions of fine particles to emissions of larger-size particles and take into account the non-carbonaceous constituents of particles of all sizes; (c) how to take account of “super-emitting” sources, which may contribute a large fraction of the emissions from a given source category; (d) how to account for rapidly fluctuating emission sources like biomass burning; (e) how to allow for intercontinental transport of fine particles in the northern hemisphere; and (f) how to estimate the uncertainty of emission estimates. Results for North America will be presented, and recommendations for the development of further, more-detailed compilations for this region will be made.