Sulfur dioxide emissions in China and sulfur trends in East Asia since 2000

Abstract

Abstract.With the rapid development of the economy, the sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ) emission from China since 2000 is of increasing concern. In this study, we estimate the annual SO 2 emission in China after 2000 using a technology-based methodology specifically for China. From 2000 to 2006, total SO 2 emission in China increased by 53%, from 21.7 Tg to 33.2 Tg, at an annual growth rate of 7.3%. Emissions from power plants are the main sources of SO 2 in China and they increased from 10.6 Tg to 18.6 Tg in the same period. Geographically, emission from north China increased by 85%, whereas that from the south increased by only 28%. The emission growth rate slowed around 2005, and emissions began to decrease after 2006 mainly due to the wide application of flue-gas desulfurization (FGD) devices in power plants in response to a new policy of China's government. This paper shows that the trend of estimated SO 2 emission in China is consistent with the trends of SO 2 concentration and acid rain pH and frequency in China, as well as with the increasing trends of background SO 2 and sulfate concentration in East Asia. A longitudinal gradient in the percentage change of urban SO 2 concentration in Japan is found during 2000-2007, indicating that the decrease of urban SO 2 is lower in areas close to the Asian continent. This implies that the transport of increasing SO 2 from the Asian continent partially counteracts the local reduction of SO 2 emission downwind. The aerosol optical depth (AOD) products of Moderate ResoluCorrespondence to: Z. Lu (zlu@anl.gov) tion Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) are found to be highly correlated with the surface solar radiation (SSR) measurements in East Asia. Using MODIS AOD data as a surrogate of SSR, we found that China and East Asia excluding Japan underwent a continuous dimming after 2000, which is in line with the dramatic increase in SO 2 emission in East Asia. The trends of AOD from both satellite retrievals and model over East Asia are also consistent with the trend of SO 2 emission in China, especially during the second half of the year, when sulfur contributes the largest fraction of AOD. The arrested growth in SO 2 emissions since 2006 is also reflected in the decreasing trends of SO 2 and SO 2− 4 concentrations, acid rain pH values and frequencies, and AOD over East Asia.

Chemical characteristics of long-range-transported fine particulate matter at Gosan, Jeju Island, in the spring and fall of 2008, 2009, 2011, and 2012

“…In eastern China, including Shandong and Henan Provinces, there are abundant SO 2 emission industrial sources, and the concentration significantly increased after 2000 (Zhang et al, 2009;Lu et al, 2010). In sulfate-dominant LTP events, gasphase ammonia and carbonate/bicarbonate in dust and sea spray are not sufficient to fully neutralize the sulfate (i.e., acid) due to high SO 2 emissions over the industrial area of China (Lu et al, 2010;Zhang et al, 2009). The AOD data during LTP 6 (sulfate-dominant) event are also shown in Figure 8, including data before and after the event.…”

Evaluation of tropospheric SO<sub>2</sub> retrieved from MAX-DOAS measurements in Xianghe, China

“…2.3), our data set offers a unique opportunity to investigate the relationship between SO 2 emission and aerosol production in suburban Beijing. This will be done through a correlation study as in Lu et al (2010) and Veefkind et al (2011). Figure 16 shows monthly scatterplots of the SO 2 concentration versus aerosol extinction coefficient retrieved in the 0-200 m layer for the March 2010-February 2013 period.…”

Decadal evolution of ship emissions in China from 2004 to 2013 by using an integrated AIS-based approach and projection to 2040

“…In comparison, emission factors of NOx decreased slightly due to technological difficulties in further improving ship engines. The increasing trends for SO2 and NOx were different from those for land-based anthropogenic sources, SO2 emissions from power plants and other major sources have decreased substantially since 2005 due to the application of emissions control technologies (Lu et al 2010), and NOx emissions declined 30 continuously after 2011 (Zhao et al, 2013). If the 0.5% global sulfur cap fails to achieve, China could make its own effort to reduce SO2 emission from ships, as shown in Fig.…”

“…Chinese Domestic Emission Control Areas (DECAs) (Ministry of Transport of China, 2015) and 0.5% global sulfur cap (International Maritime Organization (IMO), 2016), profoundly impact both domestic shipping sectors and international trade stakeholders, however, these decadal ship emission data are 10 currently unavailable in inter-annual trends of SO2 (Lu et al, 2010) and NOx (Zhao et al, 2013) emissions from anthropogenic sources and the Multi-resolution Emission Inventory for China (MEIC) (He et al, 2015). Rebuilding historical ship emission data will not only address data gap in current emission inventories, but also can help forecast future port and ship emissions, and assess the effectiveness of ship emission control measures.…”