Global gridded inventories of anthropogenic emissions of sulfur and nitrogen

Abstract

Two sets of global inventories of anthropogenic emissions of both oxides of sulfur and oxides of nitrogen for circa 1985 have been produced under the umbrella of the Global Emissions Inventory Activity (GEIA) of the International Global Atmospheric Chemistry Program. The two sets of inventories have different temporal, sectoral, and vertical resolution. Both were compiled using the same data sets; default data sets of global emissions have been refined via the use of more detailed regional data sets. This article reports on the compilation of the annual, one‐vertical‐level inventories, called version 1A; the inventory files are available to the scientific community via anonymous file transform protocol (FTP). Existing global inventories and regional inventories have been updated and combined on a 1° × 1° longitude/latitude grid. The resulting global anthropogenic emissions are 65 Tg S yr−1 and 21 Tg N yr−1; qualitative uncertainty estimates have been assigned on a regional basis. Emissions of both SOx and NOx are strongly localized in the highly populated and industrialized areas of eastern North America and across Europe; other smaller regions of large emissions are associated with densely populated areas with developed industries or in connection with exploitation of fuels or mineral reserves. The molar ratio of nitrogen to sulfur emissions reflects the overall character of sources; its value is generally between 0.33 and 10 for industrialized and heavily populated areas but varies over a wide range for other areas. We suggest that those requiring sulfur or nitrogen emission inventories standardize on the GEIA inventories, which we believe are authoritative and which are freely available to all users by anonymous FTP.

An assessment of biofuel use and burning of agricultural waste in the developing world

“…National emission inventories for the developed world sometimes include consumption from uses of wood fuel and agricultural residue [Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 1997; Benkovitz et al, 1996]. While estimates for woodfuel use and residue burning in the fields are included in some tables, they are not presented in the global maps of biofuels and residue burning (Figures 3, 4, and 5).…”

“…A brief overview of these practices in the developed world is also included. All estimates are based on information pertinent to the specific year of 1985, the year of the GEIA inventories for NO x and SO 2 [Benkovitz et al, 1996]. We also provide estimates for 1995 based on an extrapolation of our inventory for 1985.…”

Intercomparison of SCIAMACHY and OMI tropospheric NO2 columns: Observing the diurnal evolution of chemistry and emissions from space

“…[51] GEOS-Chem uses national emission inventories for anthropogenic NO x where available, and otherwise default values from the Global Emission Inventory Activity (GEIA) [Benkovitz et al, 1996] scaled to 1998 . For Europe we use the most recent NO x emissions (2004) from the European Monitoring and Evaluation Program (EMEP) following Auvray and Bey [2005].…”

Global nitrogen and sulfur inventories for oceangoing ships

“…Regional estimates for anthropogenic and biogenic emissions have been aggregated to assemble global inventories. However, ship emissions have not been addressed in a coherent manner in any existing inventories of SOx and NOx emissions [Benkovitz et al, 1996]. In most cases, methodologies to determine global emissions assign all energy emissions (including ship emissions) to land masses [Spiro et al, 1992].…”