Recovery of sparse urban greenhouse gas emissions

<p>To localize and quantify greenhouse gas emissions from cities, gas concentrations are typically measured at a small number of sites and then linked to emission fluxes using atmospheric transport models. Solving this inverse problem is challenging because the system of equations often has no...

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Main Authors: B. Zanger, J. Chen, M. Sun, F. Dietrich
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Copernicus Publications 2022-10-01
Series:Geoscientific Model Development
Online Access:https://gmd.copernicus.org/articles/15/7533/2022/gmd-15-7533-2022.pdf
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author B. Zanger
B. Zanger
J. Chen
M. Sun
F. Dietrich
author_facet B. Zanger
B. Zanger
J. Chen
M. Sun
F. Dietrich
author_sort B. Zanger
collection DOAJ
description <p>To localize and quantify greenhouse gas emissions from cities, gas concentrations are typically measured at a small number of sites and then linked to emission fluxes using atmospheric transport models. Solving this inverse problem is challenging because the system of equations often has no unique solution and the solution can be sensitive to noise. A common top–down approach for solving this problem is Bayesian inversion with the assumption of a multivariate Gaussian distribution as the prior emission field. However, such an assumption has drawbacks when the assumed spatial emissions are incorrect or not Gaussian distributed. In our work, we investigate sparse reconstruction (SR), an alternative reconstruction method that can achieve reasonable estimations without using a prior emission field by making the assumption that the emission field is sparse. We show that this assumption is generally true for the cities we investigated and that the use of the discrete wavelet transform helps to make the urban emission field even more sparse. To evaluate the performance of SR, we created concentration data by applying an atmospheric forward transport model to CO<span class="inline-formula"><sub>2</sub></span> emission inventories of several major European cities. We used SR to locate and quantify the emission sources by applying compressed sensing theory and compared the results to regularized least squares (LSs) methods. Our results show that SR requires fewer measurements than LS methods and that SR is better at localizing and quantifying unknown emitters.</p>
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spelling doaj.art-6d867a2118b549e494c3f3124057a0502022-12-22T04:06:14ZengCopernicus PublicationsGeoscientific Model Development1991-959X1991-96032022-10-01157533755610.5194/gmd-15-7533-2022Recovery of sparse urban greenhouse gas emissionsB. Zanger0B. Zanger1J. Chen2M. Sun3F. Dietrich4Environmental Sensing and Modeling, Technical University of Munich (TUM), Munich, Germanynow at: Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Inria, CNRS, Grenoble INP, LJK, 38000 Grenoble, FranceEnvironmental Sensing and Modeling, Technical University of Munich (TUM), Munich, GermanyEnvironmental Sensing and Modeling, Technical University of Munich (TUM), Munich, GermanyEnvironmental Sensing and Modeling, Technical University of Munich (TUM), Munich, Germany<p>To localize and quantify greenhouse gas emissions from cities, gas concentrations are typically measured at a small number of sites and then linked to emission fluxes using atmospheric transport models. Solving this inverse problem is challenging because the system of equations often has no unique solution and the solution can be sensitive to noise. A common top–down approach for solving this problem is Bayesian inversion with the assumption of a multivariate Gaussian distribution as the prior emission field. However, such an assumption has drawbacks when the assumed spatial emissions are incorrect or not Gaussian distributed. In our work, we investigate sparse reconstruction (SR), an alternative reconstruction method that can achieve reasonable estimations without using a prior emission field by making the assumption that the emission field is sparse. We show that this assumption is generally true for the cities we investigated and that the use of the discrete wavelet transform helps to make the urban emission field even more sparse. To evaluate the performance of SR, we created concentration data by applying an atmospheric forward transport model to CO<span class="inline-formula"><sub>2</sub></span> emission inventories of several major European cities. We used SR to locate and quantify the emission sources by applying compressed sensing theory and compared the results to regularized least squares (LSs) methods. Our results show that SR requires fewer measurements than LS methods and that SR is better at localizing and quantifying unknown emitters.</p>https://gmd.copernicus.org/articles/15/7533/2022/gmd-15-7533-2022.pdf
spellingShingle B. Zanger
B. Zanger
J. Chen
M. Sun
F. Dietrich
Recovery of sparse urban greenhouse gas emissions
Geoscientific Model Development
title Recovery of sparse urban greenhouse gas emissions
title_full Recovery of sparse urban greenhouse gas emissions
title_fullStr Recovery of sparse urban greenhouse gas emissions
title_full_unstemmed Recovery of sparse urban greenhouse gas emissions
title_short Recovery of sparse urban greenhouse gas emissions
title_sort recovery of sparse urban greenhouse gas emissions
url https://gmd.copernicus.org/articles/15/7533/2022/gmd-15-7533-2022.pdf
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