Webinar: “Greenhouse Gases (GHG)”

Webinar: “Greenhouse Gases (GHG)”

The activity is being organized by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and is supported by OAS project “Advancing Metrology for Sustainable Energy Technologies and the Environment in the Western Hemisphere“, as an action aimed at strengthening the region’s technical capabilities in the fields of greenhouse gas measurement and air quality. The seminar is targeted to technical government officials interested in learning about atmospheric and measurement applications that complement the bottom-up approach for GHG emission estimation, used for reporting GHG under the framework of the United Nations. Please feel free to share this information with those people on your contact list who may be interested in this seminar. See seminar information below.

Information:

Speaker: Jocelyn Turnbull, GNS Science, New Zealand and CIRES, University of Colorado at Boulder

Talk: Atmospheric Quantification of Fossil Fuel CO₂ Emissions with Radiocarbon

Date: April 3, 2017 – 1:00pm ET / 11:00am MT

Webinar: Seminar will be webcast using BlueJeans (details below). **

Abstract:

Fossil fuel burning is the primary driver of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂), which recently passed the landmark 400 parts per million, since starting in 1958 by Charles Keeling. As nations work towards meeting their emission reduction targets, in accordance with the Paris Agreement, many cities are taking the lead and a strong knowledge of emission rates is needed. Countries report their emissions to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), yet the current reporting framework uses only “bottom-up” economic information on sales and use of fossil fuels, and report only annual, national totals.

There is an ongoing effort to provide more detailed bottom-up emission estimates at finer spatial and temporal scales, but there remain many challenges to achieve this. I will discuss the application of a second, “top-down” approach using atmospheric observations and modelling to complement the bottom-up approach and determine fossil fuel CO₂ emissions for regions, cities and individual power plants.

Measurements of CO₂ alone are usually not sufficient to determine fossil fuel CO₂, since it cannot be readily distinguished from the natural CO₂ background caused by biogenic land and ocean carbon exchange. Due to their extreme age, fossil fuels are devoid of radiocarbon (¹⁴C), whereas all other CO₂ sources have ¹⁴C content close to that of the current atmosphere. Thus ¹⁴C is an ideal tracer for fossil fuel CO₂. I will show how the method works, and give some examples from Indianapolis, East Asia and New Zealand.

I will discuss the broader context of atmospheric ¹⁴C and other applications of these measurements, including the Southern Ocean carbon sink, verification of bioplastics and forensics.

Speaker’s URL: https://www.gns.cri.nz/

* Visitors to NIST must contact Grace Hao grace.hao@nist.gov to register. Please allow sufficient time to process the guest badge.

** Webinar access information: See document attached.

:

BlueJeans Webinar Meeting Title: NIST SPOSeminaronGreenhouseGases Speaker: JocelynTurnbull,GNSScience,NewZealandandCIRES,UniversityofColoradoatBoulder. Talk: AtmosphericQuantificationofFossilFuelCO2EmissionswithRadiocarbon. Meeting Time: Monday April 3, 2017 • 1 p.m. EDT / 1 hr Join Meeting Add to calendar (Join from computer or phone) LOGIN: https://bluejeans.com/682655792?src=htmlEmail MEETING ID: 682655792 PHONE ONLY: Just want to dial in on your phone? 1) Direct-dial with my iPhone or +1.408.740.7256 (US) +1.888.240.2560 (US Toll Free) +1.408.317.9253 (Alternate number) (all numbers) 2) Enter Meeting ID: 682655792 3) Press # IN ADVANCE: Test your connection here < http://bluejeans.com/111 >, if you are new to BlueJeans. DURING THE WEBINAR: Please mute your mic during the talk. If you have questions, use the “chat” box. Please give your name.