Hydrocarbon Tracers Suggest Methane Emissions from Fossil Sources Occur Predominately Before Gas Processing and That Petroleum Plays Are a Significant Source
We use global airborne observations of propane (C₃H₈) and ethane (C₂H₆) from the Atmospheric Tomography (ATom) and HIAPER Pole-to-Pole Observations (HIPPO), as well as U.S.-based aircraft and tower observations by NOAA and from the NCAR FRAPPE campaign as tracers for emissions from oil and gas opera...
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American Chemical Society
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ftcaltechauth:oai:authors.library.caltech.edu:115474 2023-05-15T15:08:38+02:00 Hydrocarbon Tracers Suggest Methane Emissions from Fossil Sources Occur Predominately Before Gas Processing and That Petroleum Plays Are a Significant Source Tribby, Ariana L. Bois, Justin S. Montzka, Stephen A. Atlas, Elliot L. Vimont, Isaac Lan, Xin Tans, Pieter P. Elkins, James W. Blake, Donald R. Wennberg, Paul O. 2022-07-05 application/pdf https://authors.library.caltech.edu/115474/ https://authors.library.caltech.edu/115474/1/acs.est.2c00927.pdf https://authors.library.caltech.edu/115474/2/es2c00927_si_001.pdf https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20220711-653341000 en eng American Chemical Society https://authors.library.caltech.edu/115474/1/acs.est.2c00927.pdf https://authors.library.caltech.edu/115474/2/es2c00927_si_001.pdf Tribby, Ariana L. and Bois, Justin S. and Montzka, Stephen A. and Atlas, Elliot L. and Vimont, Isaac and Lan, Xin and Tans, Pieter P. and Elkins, James W. and Blake, Donald R. and Wennberg, Paul O. (2022) Hydrocarbon Tracers Suggest Methane Emissions from Fossil Sources Occur Predominately Before Gas Processing and That Petroleum Plays Are a Significant Source. Environmental Science and Technology, 56 (13). pp. 9623-9631. ISSN 0013-936X. PMCID PMC9260955. doi:10.1021/acs.est.2c00927. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20220711-653341000 <https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20220711-653341000> cc_by_nc_nd CC-BY-NC-ND Article PeerReviewed 2022 ftcaltechauth https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.2c00927 2022-07-14T17:54:28Z We use global airborne observations of propane (C₃H₈) and ethane (C₂H₆) from the Atmospheric Tomography (ATom) and HIAPER Pole-to-Pole Observations (HIPPO), as well as U.S.-based aircraft and tower observations by NOAA and from the NCAR FRAPPE campaign as tracers for emissions from oil and gas operations. To simulate global mole fraction fields for these gases, we update the default emissions’ configuration of C₃H₈ used by the global chemical transport model, GEOS-Chem v13.0.0, using a scaled C₂H₆ spatial proxy. With the updated emissions, simulations of both C₃H₈ and C₂H₆ using GEOS-Chem are in reasonable agreement with ATom and HIPPO observations, though the updated emission fields underestimate C₃H₈ accumulation in the arctic wintertime, pointing to additional sources of this gas in the high latitudes (e.g., Europe). Using a Bayesian hierarchical model, we estimate global emissions of C₂H₆ and C₃H₈ from fossil fuel production in 2016–2018 to be 13.3 ± 0.7 (95% CI) and 14.7 ± 0.8 (95% CI) Tg/year, respectively. We calculate bottom-up hydrocarbon emission ratios using basin composition measurements weighted by gas production and find their magnitude is higher than expected and is similar to ratios informed by our revised alkane emissions. This suggests that emissions are dominated by pre-processing activities in oil-producing basins. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Caltech Authors (California Institute of Technology) Arctic Environmental Science & Technology 56 13 9623 9631 |
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Caltech Authors (California Institute of Technology) |
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English |
description |
We use global airborne observations of propane (C₃H₈) and ethane (C₂H₆) from the Atmospheric Tomography (ATom) and HIAPER Pole-to-Pole Observations (HIPPO), as well as U.S.-based aircraft and tower observations by NOAA and from the NCAR FRAPPE campaign as tracers for emissions from oil and gas operations. To simulate global mole fraction fields for these gases, we update the default emissions’ configuration of C₃H₈ used by the global chemical transport model, GEOS-Chem v13.0.0, using a scaled C₂H₆ spatial proxy. With the updated emissions, simulations of both C₃H₈ and C₂H₆ using GEOS-Chem are in reasonable agreement with ATom and HIPPO observations, though the updated emission fields underestimate C₃H₈ accumulation in the arctic wintertime, pointing to additional sources of this gas in the high latitudes (e.g., Europe). Using a Bayesian hierarchical model, we estimate global emissions of C₂H₆ and C₃H₈ from fossil fuel production in 2016–2018 to be 13.3 ± 0.7 (95% CI) and 14.7 ± 0.8 (95% CI) Tg/year, respectively. We calculate bottom-up hydrocarbon emission ratios using basin composition measurements weighted by gas production and find their magnitude is higher than expected and is similar to ratios informed by our revised alkane emissions. This suggests that emissions are dominated by pre-processing activities in oil-producing basins. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Tribby, Ariana L. Bois, Justin S. Montzka, Stephen A. Atlas, Elliot L. Vimont, Isaac Lan, Xin Tans, Pieter P. Elkins, James W. Blake, Donald R. Wennberg, Paul O. |
spellingShingle |
Tribby, Ariana L. Bois, Justin S. Montzka, Stephen A. Atlas, Elliot L. Vimont, Isaac Lan, Xin Tans, Pieter P. Elkins, James W. Blake, Donald R. Wennberg, Paul O. Hydrocarbon Tracers Suggest Methane Emissions from Fossil Sources Occur Predominately Before Gas Processing and That Petroleum Plays Are a Significant Source |
author_facet |
Tribby, Ariana L. Bois, Justin S. Montzka, Stephen A. Atlas, Elliot L. Vimont, Isaac Lan, Xin Tans, Pieter P. Elkins, James W. Blake, Donald R. Wennberg, Paul O. |
author_sort |
Tribby, Ariana L. |
title |
Hydrocarbon Tracers Suggest Methane Emissions from Fossil Sources Occur Predominately Before Gas Processing and That Petroleum Plays Are a Significant Source |
title_short |
Hydrocarbon Tracers Suggest Methane Emissions from Fossil Sources Occur Predominately Before Gas Processing and That Petroleum Plays Are a Significant Source |
title_full |
Hydrocarbon Tracers Suggest Methane Emissions from Fossil Sources Occur Predominately Before Gas Processing and That Petroleum Plays Are a Significant Source |
title_fullStr |
Hydrocarbon Tracers Suggest Methane Emissions from Fossil Sources Occur Predominately Before Gas Processing and That Petroleum Plays Are a Significant Source |
title_full_unstemmed |
Hydrocarbon Tracers Suggest Methane Emissions from Fossil Sources Occur Predominately Before Gas Processing and That Petroleum Plays Are a Significant Source |
title_sort |
hydrocarbon tracers suggest methane emissions from fossil sources occur predominately before gas processing and that petroleum plays are a significant source |
publisher |
American Chemical Society |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
https://authors.library.caltech.edu/115474/ https://authors.library.caltech.edu/115474/1/acs.est.2c00927.pdf https://authors.library.caltech.edu/115474/2/es2c00927_si_001.pdf https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20220711-653341000 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic |
genre_facet |
Arctic |
op_relation |
https://authors.library.caltech.edu/115474/1/acs.est.2c00927.pdf https://authors.library.caltech.edu/115474/2/es2c00927_si_001.pdf Tribby, Ariana L. and Bois, Justin S. and Montzka, Stephen A. and Atlas, Elliot L. and Vimont, Isaac and Lan, Xin and Tans, Pieter P. and Elkins, James W. and Blake, Donald R. and Wennberg, Paul O. (2022) Hydrocarbon Tracers Suggest Methane Emissions from Fossil Sources Occur Predominately Before Gas Processing and That Petroleum Plays Are a Significant Source. Environmental Science and Technology, 56 (13). pp. 9623-9631. ISSN 0013-936X. PMCID PMC9260955. doi:10.1021/acs.est.2c00927. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20220711-653341000 <https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20220711-653341000> |
op_rights |
cc_by_nc_nd |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY-NC-ND |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.2c00927 |
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Environmental Science & Technology |
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56 |
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13 |
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9623 |
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9631 |
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1766339956579500032 |