Inverse modelling of CF4 and NF3 emissions in East Asia

Tim Arnold*, Alistair J. Manning, Jooil Kim, Shanlan Li, Helen Webster, David Thomson, Jens Mühle, Ray F. Weiss, Sunyoung Park, Simon O'Doherty

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle (Academic Journal)peer-review

32 Citations (Scopus)
278 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Decadal trends in the atmospheric abundances of carbon tetrafluoride (CF4) and nitrogen trifluoride (NF3) have been well characterised and have provided a time series of global total emissions. Information on locations of emissions contributing to the global total, however, is currently poor. We use a unique set of measurements between 2008 and 2015 from the Gosan station, Jeju Island, South Korea (part of the Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment network), together with an atmospheric transport model, to make spatially disaggregated emission estimates of these gases in East Asia. Due to the poor availability of good prior information for this study, our emission estimates are largely influenced by the atmospheric measurements. Notably, we are able to highlight emission hotspots of NF3 and CF4 in South Korea due to the measurement location. We calculate emissions of CF4 to be quite constant between the years 2008 and 2015 for both China and South Korea, with 2015 emissions calculated at 4.3±2.7 and 0.36±0.11 Gg yr-1, respectively. Emission estimates of NF3 from South Korea could be made with relatively small uncertainty at 0.6±0.07 Gg yr-1 in 2015, which equates to ∼ 1.6 % of the country's CO2 emissions. We also apply our method to calculate emissions of CHF3 (HFC-23) between 2008 and 2012, for which our results find good agreement with other studies and which helps support our choice in methodology for CF4 and NF3..

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)13305-13320
Number of pages16
JournalAtmospheric Chemistry and Physics
Volume18
Issue number18
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 17 Sept 2018

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