Methane Emissions from the Munich Oktoberfest

Abstract

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> This study presents the first investigation of the methane (CH<sub>4</sub>) emissions of a big festival. In 2018 we measured the CH<sub>4</sub> emissions of Munich Oktoberfest, the world's largest folk festival, using in-situ measurements combined with a Gaussian plume dispersion model. Oktoberfest is a potential source for CH<sub>4</sub> as a high amount of natural gas for cooking and heating is used.</p> <p>Measurements were performed by walking and biking around the perimeter of the Oktoberfest premises (Theresienwiese) at different times of the day, during the week and at the weekend. The measurements show enhancements of up to 100 ppb compared to background values and measurements performed after Oktoberfest. The average emission flux of Oktoberfest is determined as 6.7 ± 0.6 μg/(m<sup>2</sup>s). Additional analyses, including the daily emission cycle and comparisons between emissions and the number of visitors, suggest that CH<sub>4</sub> emissions of Oktoberfest are not only due to the human biogenic emissions; it is likely that fossil fuel CH<sub>4</sub> emissions, such as incomplete combustion or loss in the gas appliances, are the major contributors to Oktoberfest emissions.</p> <p>Our results can help to develop CH<sub>4</sub> reduction policies and measures to reduce emissions at festivals and other major events in cities. Furthermore, events with a limited duration have not yet been included in the state-of-the-art emission inventories, such as TNO-MACC, EDGAR or IER. Our investigations show that these emissions are not negligible. Therefore, these events should be included in future emission inventories.</p>

Methane Mitigation: Methods to Reduce Emissions, on the Path to the Paris Agreement

“…As well as cars, bicycles, and child buggies are useful for carrying instruments and batteries, as are backpacks. In a detailed study of emissions around the Munich Oktoberfest in Germany (a major beer festival), Chen et al () made in situ measurements by walking and biking around the perimeter of the Oktoberfest. They then applied a Gaussian plume dispersion model to assess emissions.…”

Improved calibration procedures for the EM27/SUN spectrometers of the COllaborative Carbon Column Observing Network (COCCON)

“…Several studies have revealed its previously unprecedented high level of performance and stability (Frey et al, 2015(Frey et al, , 2019Sha et al, 2020). In addition, the portability of the EM27/SUN spectrometer favours campaign use, and a series of such campaigns have already successfully been conducted by various investigators (Hase et al, 2015;Hedelius et al, 2016;Butz et al, 2017;Viatte et al, 2017;Chen et al, 2016Chen et al, , 2020Kille et al, 2019;Vogel et al, 2019;Luther et al, 2019;Makarova et al, 2021;Jones et al, 2021).…”

Urban Methane Emissions in Auckland, New Zealand

“…Conducting mobile sensing requires specialised equipment. There are a few basic requirements of the mobile sensing method; the first is a vehicle, although bicycles can be used (Chen et al, 2020). Electric cars would be ideal, however, due to the current lack of range, petrol cars are often used.…”

“…Because of this, the parts of an urban area that are surveyed must be carefully selected. There are two main approaches to this problem; the first is to methodically map all parts of the urban area (Maazallahi et al, 2020;von Fischer et al, 2017), or to target known or assumed emission sources multiple times (Albertson et al, 2016;Chen et al, 2020) to get a better quantification of emission sources. Both approaches have their benefits, the targeted approach can better quantify emissions by measuring emissions multiple times at different times of days, and on different days (Chen et al, 2020).…”

“…The instrument was powered by the car battery. Cavity ring-down spectrometers have been widely used in mobile sensing campaigns for methane (Albertson et al, 2016;Ars et al, 2020;Chen et al, 2020;Defratyka et al, 2021;Gallagher et al, 2015;Lamb et al, 2016;Maazallahi et al, 2020;Phillips et al, 2013;von Fischer et al, 2017;Weller et al, 2019). A Garmin GPSmap 62s handheld GPS (Garmin Ltd, 2010) device was used to record the time and location information of measurements.…”