A multi-city urban atmospheric greenhouse gas measurement data synthesis.

Urban regions emit a large fraction of anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) such as carbon dioxide (CO) and methane (CH) that contribute to modern-day climate change. As such, a growing number of urban policymakers and stakeholders are adopting emission reduction targets and implementing policies to reach those targets. Over the past two decades research teams have established urban GHG monitoring networks to determine how much, where, and why a particular city emits GHGs, and to track changes in emissions over time.

Measurements of Atmospheric Methane Emissions from Stray Gas Migration: A Case Study from the Marcellus Shale.

Understanding emissions of methane from legacy and ongoing shale gas development requires both regional studies that assess the frequency of emissions and case studies that assess causation. We present the first direct measurements of emissions in a case study of a putatively leaking gas well in the largest shale gas play in the United States. We quantify atmospheric methane emissions in farmland >2 km from the nearest shale gas well cited for casing and cementing issues.

The influence of near-field fluxes on seasonal carbon dioxide enhancements: results from the Indianapolis Flux Experiment (INFLUX).

Background: Networks of tower-based CO mole fraction sensors have been deployed by various groups in and around cities across the world to quantify anthropogenic CO emissions from metropolitan areas. A critical aspect in these approaches is the separation of atmospheric signatures from distant sources and sinks (i.e.

Policy-Relevant Assessment of Urban CO Emissions.

Global fossil fuel carbon dioxide (FFCO) emissions will be dictated to a great degree by the trajectory of emissions from urban areas. Conventional methods to quantify urban FFCO emissions typically rely on self-reported economic/energy activity data transformed into emissions via standard emission factors. However, uncertainties in these traditional methods pose a roadblock to implementation of effective mitigation strategies, independently monitor long-term trends, and assess policy outcomes.

Estimating the Vertical Structure of Weather-Induced Mission Costs for Small UAS.

The performance of small uninhabited aerial systems (UAS) is very sensitive to the atmospheric state. Improving awareness of the environment and its impact on mission performance is important to enabling greater autonomy for small UAS. A modeling system is proposed that allows a small UAS to build a model of the atmospheric state using computational resources available onboard the aircraft and relate the atmospheric state to the cost of completing a mission.

Synthesis of Urban CO Emission Estimates from Multiple Methods from the Indianapolis Flux Project (INFLUX).

Urban areas contribute approximately three-quarters of fossil fuel derived CO emissions, and many cities have enacted emissions mitigation plans. Evaluation of the effectiveness of mitigation efforts will require measurement of both the emission rate and its change over space and time. The relative performance of different emission estimation methods is a critical requirement to support mitigation efforts.

On the Impact of Granularity of Space-based Urban CO Emissions in Urban Atmospheric Inversions: A Case Study for Indianapolis, IN.

Quantifying greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from cities is a key challenge towards effective emissions management. An inversion analysis from the INdianapolis FLUX experiment (INFLUX) project, as the first of its kind, has achieved a top-down emission estimate for a single city using CO data collected by the dense tower network deployed across the city. However, city-level emission data, used as emissions, are also a key component in the atmospheric inversion framework.

The Indianapolis Flux Experiment (INFLUX): A test-bed for developing urban greenhouse gas emission measurements.

The objective of the Indianapolis Flux Experiment (INFLUX) is to develop, evaluate and improve methods for measuring greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from cities. INFLUX's scientific objectives are to quantify CO and CH emission rates at 1 km resolution with a 10% or better accuracy and precision, to determine whole-city emissions with similar skill, and to achieve high (weekly or finer) temporal resolution at both spatial resolutions. The experiment employs atmospheric GHG measurements from both towers and aircraft, atmospheric transport observations and models, and activity-based inventory products to quantify urban GHG emissions.