Quantifying NO_xEmissions from U.S. Oil and Gas Production Regions Using TROPOMI NO₂

Quantifying NO_xEmissions from U.S. Oil and Gas Production Regions Using TROPOMI NO₂

Dix, Barbara (University of Colorado)
Francoeur, Colby (University of Colorado; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
Li, Meng (University of Colorado; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
Serrano Calvo, R. (TU Delft Atmospheric Remote Sensing)
Levelt, Pieternel Felicitas (TU Delft Atmospheric Remote Sensing; University Corporation for Atmospheric Research; Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI))
Veefkind, j. Pepijn (TU Delft Atmospheric Remote Sensing; Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI))
McDonald, Brian C. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
De Gouw, Joost (University of Colorado)

2022

The production of crude oil and natural gas is associated with emissions of air pollutants, such as nitrogen oxides (NOx = NO + NO2) and volatile organic compounds, which are precursors for the formation of ground-level ozone. Knowledge of these emissions is critical to the understanding and mitigation of local air quality. NOx emissions from oil and gas production activities are not well described in commonly used emission inventories, and discrepancies of several factors have been found in the past. Here we present an easy and computationally efficient method to quantify NOx emissions from satellite NO2 observations that can be applied to evaluate common emission inventories and provide timely input for chemistry transport models. Using NO2 columns from the TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI), we calculated annually averaged NOx emissions from the divergence of NO2 column fluxes for six oil and gas production regions in the United States. Derived NOx emissions for the years 2018 to 2020 range between 4.8 and 81.1 t/day, and observed trends over time are consistent with changes in industrial activity. To evaluate the method, we compared our results with the fuel-based oil and gas NOx inventory (FOG) and performed sensitivity studies using model output from the Weather Research Forecasting model with Chemistry (WRF-Chem). We found that annually averaged NOx emissions from oil and gas production activities can in most cases be calculated within an uncertainty of 50%, while simultaneously derived emission maps show the spatial distribution of NOx emissions with a high level of detail. For future use, this method can easily be applied globally.

air quality
emissions
nitrogen oxides
oil and gas
remote sensing
satellite

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:ebfa8556-22d7-4ef8-afc1-740922207f27

https://doi.org/10.1021/acsearthspacechem.1c00387

2023-07-01

2472-3452

ACS Earth and Space Chemistry, 6 (2), 403-414

Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.

Institutional Repository

journal article

© 2022 Barbara Dix, Colby Francoeur, Meng Li, R. Serrano Calvo, Pieternel Felicitas Levelt, j. Pepijn Veefkind, Brian C. McDonald, Joost De Gouw