Abstract. Air quality observations by satellite instruments are global and have a regular temporal resolution, which makes them very useful in studying long-term trends in atmospheric species. To monitor air quality trends in China for the period 2005-2015, we derive SO 2 columns and NO x emissions on a provincial level with improved accuracy. To put these trends into perspective they are compared with public data on energy consumption and the environmental policies of China. We distinguish the effect of air quality regulations from economic growth by comparing them relatively to fossil fuel consumption. Pollutant levels, per unit of fossil fuel, are used to assess the effectiveness of air quality regulations. We note that the desulfurization regulations enforced in 2005-2006 only had a significant effect in the years 2008-2009, when a much stricter control of the actual use of the installations began. For national NO x emissions a distinct decreasing trend is only visible from 2012 onwards, but the emission peak year differs from province to province. Unlike SO 2 , emissions of NO x are highly related to traffic. Furthermore, regulations for NO x emissions are partly decided on a provincial level. The last 3 years show a reduction both in SO 2 and NO x emissions per fossil fuel unit, since the authorities have implemented several new environmental regulations. Despite an increasing fossil fuel consumption and a growing transport sector, the effects of air quality policy in China are clearly visible. Without the air quality regulations the concentration of SO 2 would be about 2.5 times higher and the NO 2 concentrations would be at least 25 % higher than they are today in China.

[1] Emission inventories of air pollutants are crucial information for policy makers and form important input data for air quality models. Using satellite observations for emission estimates has important advantages over bottom-up emission inventories: they are spatially consistent, have high temporal resolution, and enable updates shortly after the satellite data become available. We present a new algorithm specifically designed to use daily satellite observations of column concentrations for fast updates of emission estimates of short-lived atmospheric constituents on a mesoscopic scale ($25 Â 25 km 2 ). The algorithm needs only one forward model run from a chemical transport model to calculate the sensitivity of concentration to emission, using trajectory analysis to account for transport away from the source. By using a Kalman filter in the inverse step, optimal use of the a priori knowledge and the newly observed data is made. We apply the algorithm for NO x emission estimates of East China, using the CHIMERE model on a 0.25 degree resolution together with tropospheric NO 2 column retrievals of the OMI and GOME-2 satellite instruments. Closed loop tests show that the algorithm is capable of reproducing new emission scenarios. Applied with real satellite data, the algorithm is able to detect emerging sources (e.g., new power plants), and improves emission information for areas where proxy data are not or badly known (e.g., shipping emissions). Chemical transport model runs with the daily updated emission estimates provide better spatial and temporal agreement between observed and simulated concentrations, facilitating improved air quality forecasts.Citation: Mijling, B., and R. J. van der A (2012), Using daily satellite observations to estimate emissions of short-lived air pollutants on a mesoscopic scale,

To assess the impact of atmospheric aerosols on health, climate, and air traffic, aerosol properties must be measured with fine spatial and temporal sampling. This can be achieved by actively involving citizens and the technology they own to form an atmospheric measurement network. We establish this new measurement strategy by developing and deploying iSPEX, a low-cost, mass-producible optical add-on for smartphones with a corresponding app. The aerosol optical thickness (AOT) maps derived from iSPEX spectropolarimetric measurements of the daytime cloud-free sky by thousands of citizen scientists throughout the Netherlands are in good agreement with the spatial AOT structure derived from satellite imagery and temporal AOT variations derived from ground-based precision photometry. These maps show structures at scales of kilometers that are typical for urban air pollution, indicating the potential of iSPEX to provide information about aerosol properties at locations and at times that are not covered by current monitoring efforts.

During the 2008 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Beijing (from 8 August to 17 September), local authorities enforced strong measures to reduce air pollution during the events. To evaluate the direct effect of these measures, we use the tropospheric NO2 column observations from the satellite instruments GOME‐2 and OMI. We interpret these data against simulations from the regional chemistry transport model CHIMERE, based on a 2006 emission inventory, and find a reduction of NO2 concentrations of approximately 60% above Beijing during the Olympic period. The air quality measures were especially effective in the Beijing area, but also noticeable in surrounding cities of Tianjin (30% reduction) and Shijiazhuang (20% reduction).

Abstract. Due to changing economic activity, emissions of air pollutants in East Asia are changing rapidly in space and time. Monthly emission estimates of nitrogen oxides derived from satellite observations provide valuable insight into the evolution of anthropogenic activity on a regional scale. We present the first results of a new emission estimation algorithm, specifically designed to use daily satellite observations of column concentrations for fast updates of emissions of short-lived atmospheric constituents on a mesoscopic scale (∼ 0.25The algorithm is used to construct a monthly NO x emission time series for the period 2007-2011 from tropospheric NO 2 observations of GOME-2 for East Chinese provinces and surrounding countries. The new emission estimates correspond well with the bottom-up inventory of EDGAR v4.2, but are smaller than the inventories of INTEX-B and MEIC. They reveal a strong positive trend during 2007-2011 for almost all Chinese provinces, related to the country's economic development. We find a 41 % increment of NO x emissions in East China during this period, which shows the need to update emission inventories in this region on a regular basis. Negative emission trends are found in Japan and South Korea, which can be attributed to a combined effect of local environmental policy and global economic crises. Analysis of seasonal variation distinguishes between regions with dominant anthropogenic or biogenic emissions. For regions with a mixed anthropogenic and biogenic signature, the opposite seasonality can be used for an estimation of the separate emission contributions. Finally, the non-local concentration/emission relationships calculated by the algorithm are used to quantify the direct effect of regional NO x emissions on tropospheric NO 2 concentrations outside the region. For regions such as North Korea and the Beijing municipality, a substantial part of the tropospheric NO 2 originates from emissions elsewhere.