3 resultados para GHGs Emissions
em Duke University
Resumo:
New burned area datasets and top-down constraints from atmospheric concentration measurements of pyrogenic gases have decreased the large uncertainty in fire emissions estimates. However, significant gaps remain in our understanding of the contribution of deforestation, savanna, forest, agricultural waste, and peat fires to total global fire emissions. Here we used a revised version of the Carnegie-Ames-Stanford-Approach (CASA) biogeochemical model and improved satellite-derived estimates of area burned, fire activity, and plant productivity to calculate fire emissions for the 1997-2009 period on a 0.5° spatial resolution with a monthly time step. For November 2000 onwards, estimates were based on burned area, active fire detections, and plant productivity from the MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensor. For the partitioning we focused on the MODIS era. We used maps of burned area derived from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Visible and Infrared Scanner (VIRS) and Along-Track Scanning Radiometer (ATSR) active fire data prior to MODIS (1997-2000) and estimates of plant productivity derived from Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) observations during the same period. Average global fire carbon emissions according to this version 3 of the Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED3) were 2.0 PgC year-1 with significant interannual variability during 1997-2001 (2.8 Pg Cyear-1 in 1998 and 1.6 PgC year-1 in 2001). Globally, emissions during 2002-2007 were rela-tively constant (around 2.1 Pg C year-1) before declining in 2008 (1.7 Pg Cyear-1) and 2009 (1.5 PgC year-1) partly due to lower deforestation fire emissions in South America and tropical Asia. On a regional basis, emissions were highly variable during 2002-2007 (e.g., boreal Asia, South America, and Indonesia), but these regional differences canceled out at a global level. During the MODIS era (2001-2009), most carbon emissions were from fires in grasslands and savannas (44%) with smaller contributions from tropical deforestation and degradation fires (20%), woodland fires (mostly confined to the tropics, 16%), forest fires (mostly in the extratropics, 15%), agricultural waste burning (3%), and tropical peat fires (3%). The contribution from agricultural waste fires was likely a lower bound because our approach for measuring burned area could not detect all of these relatively small fires. Total carbon emissions were on average 13% lower than in our previous (GFED2) work. For reduced trace gases such as CO and CH4, deforestation, degradation, and peat fires were more important contributors because of higher emissions of reduced trace gases per unit carbon combusted compared to savanna fires. Carbon emissions from tropical deforestation, degradation, and peatland fires were on average 0.5 PgC year-1. The carbon emissions from these fires may not be balanced by regrowth following fire. Our results provide the first global assessment of the contribution of different sources to total global fire emissions for the past decade, and supply the community with an improved 13-year fire emissions time series. © 2010 Author(s).
Resumo:
On efficiency grounds, the economics community has to date tended to emphasize price-based policies to address climate change - such as taxes or a "safety-valve" price ceiling for cap-and-trade - while environmental advocates have sought a more clear quantitative limit on emissions. This paper presents a simple modification to the idea of a safety valve - a quantitative limit that we call the allowance reserve. Importantly, this idea may bridge the gap between competing interests and potentially improve efficiency relative to tax or other price-based policies. The last point highlights the deficiencies in several previous studies of price and quantity controls for climate change that do not adequately capture the dynamic opportunities within a cap-and-trade system for allowance banking, borrowing, and intertemporal arbitrage in response to unfolding information.
Resumo:
Terrestrial ecosystems, occupying more than 25% of the Earth's surface, can serve as
`biological valves' in regulating the anthropogenic emissions of atmospheric aerosol
particles and greenhouse gases (GHGs) as responses to their surrounding environments.
While the signicance of quantifying the exchange rates of GHGs and atmospheric
aerosol particles between the terrestrial biosphere and the atmosphere is
hardly questioned in many scientic elds, the progress in improving model predictability,
data interpretation or the combination of the two remains impeded by
the lack of precise framework elucidating their dynamic transport processes over a
wide range of spatiotemporal scales. The diculty in developing prognostic modeling
tools to quantify the source or sink strength of these atmospheric substances
can be further magnied by the fact that the climate system is also sensitive to the
feedback from terrestrial ecosystems forming the so-called `feedback cycle'. Hence,
the emergent need is to reduce uncertainties when assessing this complex and dynamic
feedback cycle that is necessary to support the decisions of mitigation and
adaptation policies associated with human activities (e.g., anthropogenic emission
controls and land use managements) under current and future climate regimes.
With the goal to improve the predictions for the biosphere-atmosphere exchange
of biologically active gases and atmospheric aerosol particles, the main focus of this
dissertation is on revising and up-scaling the biotic and abiotic transport processes
from leaf to canopy scales. The validity of previous modeling studies in determining
iv
the exchange rate of gases and particles is evaluated with detailed descriptions of their
limitations. Mechanistic-based modeling approaches along with empirical studies
across dierent scales are employed to rene the mathematical descriptions of surface
conductance responsible for gas and particle exchanges as commonly adopted by all
operational models. Specically, how variation in horizontal leaf area density within
the vegetated medium, leaf size and leaf microroughness impact the aerodynamic attributes
and thereby the ultrane particle collection eciency at the leaf/branch scale
is explored using wind tunnel experiments with interpretations by a porous media
model and a scaling analysis. A multi-layered and size-resolved second-order closure
model combined with particle
uxes and concentration measurements within and
above a forest is used to explore the particle transport processes within the canopy
sub-layer and the partitioning of particle deposition onto canopy medium and forest
oor. For gases, a modeling framework accounting for the leaf-level boundary layer
eects on the stomatal pathway for gas exchange is proposed and combined with sap
ux measurements in a wind tunnel to assess how leaf-level transpiration varies with
increasing wind speed. How exogenous environmental conditions and endogenous
soil-root-stem-leaf hydraulic and eco-physiological properties impact the above- and
below-ground water dynamics in the soil-plant system and shape plant responses
to droughts is assessed by a porous media model that accommodates the transient
water
ow within the plant vascular system and is coupled with the aforementioned
leaf-level gas exchange model and soil-root interaction model. It should be noted
that tackling all aspects of potential issues causing uncertainties in forecasting the
feedback cycle between terrestrial ecosystem and the climate is unrealistic in a single
dissertation but further research questions and opportunities based on the foundation
derived from this dissertation are also brie
y discussed.