Direct space-based observations of anthropogenic CO2 emission areas from OCO-2

Abstract

Anthropogenic CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion have large impacts on climate. In order to monitor the increasing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere, accurate spaceborne observations—as available from the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2)—are needed. This work provides the first direct observation of anthropogenic CO2 from OCO-2 over the main pollution regions: eastern USA, central Europe, and East Asia. This is achieved by deseasonalizing and detrending OCO-2 CO2 observations to derive CO2 anomalies. Several small isolated emission areas (such as large cities) are detectable from the anomaly maps. The spatial distribution of the CO2 anomaly matches the features observed in the maps of the Ozone Monitoring Instrument NO2 tropospheric columns, used as an indicator of atmospheric pollution. The results of a cluster analysis confirm the spatial correlation between CO2 and NO2 data over areas with different amounts of pollution. We found positive correlation between CO2 anomalies and emission inventories. The results demonstrate the power of spaceborne data for monitoring anthropogenic CO2 emissions.