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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2022
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ftcdlib:oai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt9dq6v09b 2023-11-05T03:39:50+01:00 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 9623 - 9631 2022-07-05 application/pdf https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9dq6v09b unknown eScholarship, University of California qt9dq6v09b https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9dq6v09b public Environmental Science and Technology, vol 56, iss 13 Earth Sciences Atmospheric Sciences Air Pollutants Bayes Theorem Fossils Gases Hydrocarbons Methane Natural Gas Petroleum ethane propane energy Environmental Sciences article 2022 ftcdlib 2023-10-09T18:03:55Z 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 University of California: eScholarship |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
University of California: eScholarship |
op_collection_id |
ftcdlib |
language |
unknown |
topic |
Earth Sciences Atmospheric Sciences Air Pollutants Bayes Theorem Fossils Gases Hydrocarbons Methane Natural Gas Petroleum ethane propane energy Environmental Sciences |
spellingShingle |
Earth Sciences Atmospheric Sciences Air Pollutants Bayes Theorem Fossils Gases Hydrocarbons Methane Natural Gas Petroleum ethane propane energy Environmental Sciences 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 |
topic_facet |
Earth Sciences Atmospheric Sciences Air Pollutants Bayes Theorem Fossils Gases Hydrocarbons Methane Natural Gas Petroleum ethane propane energy Environmental Sciences |
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 |
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 |
eScholarship, University of California |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9dq6v09b |
op_coverage |
9623 - 9631 |
genre |
Arctic |
genre_facet |
Arctic |
op_source |
Environmental Science and Technology, vol 56, iss 13 |
op_relation |
qt9dq6v09b https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9dq6v09b |
op_rights |
public |
_version_ |
1781695758611775488 |