Observational insights into atmospheric CO2 and CO at the urban canopy layer top in Metropolitan Shanghai, China

Abstract

Major metropolitan areas are critical carbon emission hotspots, and understanding their carbon dynamics is essential for developing targeted climate mitigation strategies. Remote background stations often capture spatially smoothed anthropogenic signals, failing to resolve distinct urban source–sink processes. Here, we leveraged the unique 632 m Shanghai Tower (121.51° E, 31.23° N) to conduct a nearly 2-year field campaign (April 2021–March 2023), aiming to investigate CO2 and CO dynamic from the top of urban canopy layer (UCL) via stationary, continuous, single-level, high-precision, in situ measurements with a cavity ringdown laser spectrometer. Campaign-averaged mole fractions substantially exceeded global and regional backgrounds, confirming a pronounced urban carbon burden. Through a multi-stage filtering framework targeting nocturnal measurements, we derived robust regional background values. Component analysis of CO2 excess, using CO as a reliable regional combustion tracer, revealed burning of fossil fuels as the dominant contributor (avg. 85 %), alongside biogenic processes that enhanced this atmospheric excess, especially in winter under respiratory predominance, but less so in summer when partially offset by net photosynthetic uptake and cleaner airmass dilution. The 2022 Shanghai lockdown provided a natural experiment that underscored the pronounced sensitivity of UCL-top observations to metropolitan-scale anthropogenic perturbations, as reflected in synchronized decline and rapid rebound of CO2 and CO, along with a marked reversal of their emission ratio compared to 2021. Overall, these findings affirm that UCL-top observations effectively capture integrated metropolitan carbon signals, supporting refined emission tracking and top-down carbon neutrality strategies.