ACINN Graduate Seminar - WS 2024/25

2025-01-15 at 12:00 (on-line & on-site)

Quantifying Urban Methane Emissions: Insights from Long-Term Eddy Covariance Measurements in Innsbruck

Michael Stichaner

ACINN, University of Innsbruck, Austria

 

Urban areas are significant, yet poorly constrained sources of methane (CH₄), a potent greenhouse gas with a global warming potential 28 times that of CO₂ over a 100-year period. CH₄ plays a critical role in radiative forcing. Its short atmospheric lifetime enables rapid atmospheric responses to emission reductions, underscoring the need for precise emission quantification to improve climate mitigation strategies.

This presentation will discuss results from multiyear eddy covariance (EC) measurements conducted in Innsbruck, Austria, a mid-sized Alpine city, to assess urban CH₄ and CO₂ fluxes. Footprint analyses, Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF), and chemical tracers, including ethane-to-methane ratios, were employed to identify key emission sources within the footprint around our measurement tower, located 42 meters above ground. A statistically significant temperature dependence suggests that a large proportion of CH₄ emissions is associated with natural gas consumption and emissions at the end-user level. By quantifying urban EC-based emission estimates, we aim to improve the accuracy of bottom-up emission inventories, while also addressing the methodological challenges inherent in this approach.

 

 

 

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