EMISSIONS CAP: Researchers have been able to accurately estimate greenhouse gas emissions from Salt Lake City, raising hopes for independent verification of CO2 cuts.
Image: flickr/countylemonade
Negotiating an international agreement to fight climate change is hard enough. But for the past several years, scientists have warned that verifying whether countries meet their pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions could be even harder.
Current U.N. rules require countries to submit national emissions inventories. But the data are self-reported and not required annually from all countries, and there is not always independent information to verify it.
The issue, politically sensitive for many nations, was a bone of contention for the United States and China at U.N. climate talks last year in Cancun, Mexico, although negotiators eventually agreed to develop a global monitoring system.
Now a new government-funded study suggests researchers are getting closer to being able to independently verify an individual nation's CO2 output.
Researchers at Harvard University, the University of Utah and the National Center for Atmospheric Research say they were able to accurately measure carbon dioxide emitted in Salt Lake City using ground stations, weather and land-use data, and a computer model.
Information on the amount of carbon dioxide in the air came from a network of sensors that has kept tabs on Salt Lake City since 2002 with stations placed throughout the metro area, including one on top of a mountain in nearby Snowbird.
The scientists fed information about Salt Lake City's estimated CO2 emissions and local weather conditions into a model that simulated how atmospheric conditions would mix and distribute the gas. Then they compared the model results with the observations from the CO2 sensor network.
Their results, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show the model estimates came within 15 percent -- or less -- of Salt Lake's actual CO2 emissions.
Going from the country to cities
"The take-home message is that the technology is not the limiting step in terms of acquiring this information," said study co-author Jim Ehleringer, an urban ecologist at the University of Utah. "Cities or countries have the capacity to describe their emissions in a very quantitative and testable way."
The new study's 15 percent margin of error is higher than the 5 percent called for by the National Academy of Sciences in a recent report. But Ehleringer said the work is an important step toward developing an international system that can track CO2 emissions country by country.
Although scientists have measured atmospheric CO2 levels for decades, the current network of ground stations, observatories, aircraft and other instruments emerged during an era when researchers were trying to answer questions about the total amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
The best way to do that was placing monitoring equipment far from population centers, where CO2 streaming from power plants, automobiles and other infrastructure could skew attempts to determine the average global level of CO2.
But these days, with many scientists are focused on tracking greenhouse gases produced by human activities at national, regional and local scales, the current monitoring network doesn't measure up.
A satellite measure for outliers?
Now the race is on to create a system that could aid the enforcement of a new climate treaty. Doing so should be a priority for the world's governments, science academies from 15 countries said last week.
"The ability to accurately estimate greenhouse gas sources and sinks is a prerequisite for international agreements or national emission reduction programs to be effective," the academies said in a joint statement.
But while the new study suggests there's a way to improve monitoring of CO2 emissions, there's not always a will.
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8 Comments
Add CommentWhy? More bureaucratic insanity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSeriously? Because one can monitor the CO2 of a single city (in a relatively desolate area) the same system can be scaled to monitor a significant portion of the globe including expansive deserts, tropical forests, Himalayan mountains, and thousands of gorges (china)? Now if this had some Utah, the entire SW or something along those lines I'd be a little more accepting. And none of that even mentions the cost of installing those sensors through-out the terrain I mentioned earlier.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWith just a little astronomy in my pocket, what about placing spectroscopic reflectors. This seems similar to what is used to determine the composition of stars, but with a known source. For the price of a reflector, a tourist to verify no tamper, and a space picture when the camera passes over, treaty's could be maintained for a lot less insanity, and a lot of scientific accuracy. (plus if you want to look at the plume, place more reflectors, and take more picts)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow funny. Why is there any need to verify in China? The US is equal in its emissions yet has no political power some mislabel "will" to reduce its own emissions, and dwindling public support to even consider future cuts. Why would China sign any treaty with the US to limit their own emissions when 1)they are still developing and reductions will have a direct reduction in growth 2) the US and Europe is responsible for actually nearly 100 percent of the aggregate amount of GHG and CO2 already in the air since their industrial revolution heating the globe already to a tipping point (we are probably by most of the latest research and results from glacial melt study past the event horizon where mitigation by proportional treaty reductions will be too little too late) 3) the US and Europe haven't got the authority in their own countries to limit Co2 in reciprocity even though their growth is less tie to emitting -that is with growth in the 1 percent 2 percent regions, any emissions reductions will stunt stagnant growth negligiby. Even so, the US government would be taken to court for the next two decades to contest reduction mandates until it is too late to act with significance. It's hopeless and the west are hypocrites so China would not bother but pay lip service to fools who don't practice what they preach.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCorrection to the post above.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this["tied" to emitting]
[Even so, the US government would be taken to court for the next two decades -by their "own" corporations and red states- for the next two decades to contest new reduction mandates until it is too late to act responsibly with significance.]
Better than tax cuts for rich people that only use them to fund the Wall St. casino...or it's much better than funding wars. At least we get useful information out of this study instead of wealth redistribution toward the top of the economic pyramid and increased militancy around the world.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is really coll that we are able to measure <a href="http://www.manwill.net/heating.html">salt lake heating</a> CO2. It may not be feasible to get China to agree to such regulations, but it will be possible to get other cities in the US on board with the improvement.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI've been really happy living in Utah. But this hard winter did a number on my heat. Needless to say it broke, so I am looking for better <a href="http://www.smedleyservice.com">heating in utah</a> counties. If anyone can recommend someone good, that would be great.
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