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Title:
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Cabauw greenhouse gas measurement 2015
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Author(s):
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Published by:
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Publication date:
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ECN
Environment & Energy Engineering
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30-7-2016
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ECN report number:
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Document type:
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ECN-E--16-031
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ECN publication
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Number of pages:
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Full text:
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40
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Download PDF
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Abstract:
At the Paris climate meeting in December 2015, 196 countries agreed to limit greenhouse gas emissions in order to keep the world wide temperature change increase within 2 degrees. To reach this goal, the aim is to have net zero emissions for CO2 equivalent gasses in 2050. This aim, will lead to extra pressure to reduce fossil fuel related emissions and a quest for options to sequester or store extra CO2 from the atmosphere. The need to understand where the greenhouse gasses come from and where they end up is thus more prominent than ever. This is why greenhouse gas concentration measurements in the atmosphere, that show both the effect of emissions and the potential response of natural systems to climate change, are so important. Moreover, taking into account the timescale on which climate change occurs, there is the need for long time series that document the gas exchange between oceanic and terrestrial sources, sinks and the atmosphere. This report shows the unique data trend obtained at the Cabauw tall tower that provides measurements over the last 22 years. The continuation of these monitoring activities for 2015 were granted after questions in the Dutch house of parliament in November 2014. Without that grant this unique dataset would have stopped. In 2015, a serious backlog of data processing was solved with aid of the INGOS EU program. The Cabauw dataset is made available to the international community through the Obspack NOAA project that links to the European ICOS program. Within the national project for 2015 a new data interpretation tool, the Cabauw emission index is proposed. First results of this method are documented here. The results are promising enough to continue and improve this evaluation tool in the coming year. Furthermore, in 2015 the Cabauw hardware was changed substantially with the installation of a new fast Fourier transform infrared spectrometer. This new instrument will further improve the quality of the data obtained and facilitate better assessment of sources and sinks calculations for the Dutch territory and beyond.
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