Comparison of Emissions Inventories of Anthropogenic Air Pollutants in China

Abstract

Anthropogenic air pollutant emissions have been increasing rapidly in China. Modelers use emissions inventories to assess temporal and spatial distribution of these emissions to estimate their impacts on regional and global air quality. However, large uncertainties exist in emissions estimates and assessing discrepancies in these inventories is essential for better understanding of the trends in air pollution over China. We compare five different emissions inventories estimating emissions of carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur dioxide (SO2), particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter of 10 µm or less (PM10) from China. The emissions inventories analyzed in this paper include Regional Emissions inventory in ASia v2.1 (REAS); Multi-resolution Emission Inventory for China (MEIC); Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research v4.2 (EDGAR); the inventory by Yu Zhao (ZHAO); and the Greenhouse Gas and Air Pollution Interactions and Synergies (GAINS). We focus on the period between 2000 and 2008 during which the Chinese economic activities have more than doubled. In addition to the national total, we also analyzed emissions from four source sectors (industry, transportation, power, and residential) and within seven regions in China (East, North, Northeast, Central, Southwest, Northwest, and South) and found that large disagreements (∼ seven fold) exist among the five inventories at disaggregated levels. These discrepancies lead to differences of 67µg/m3, 15ppbv, and 470ppbv for monthly mean PM10, O3, and CO, respectively, in modelled regional concentrations in China. We also find that MEIC inventory emissions estimates create a VOC-limited environment that produces much lower O3 mixing ratio in the East and Central China compared to the simulations using REAS and EDGAR estimates. Our results illustrate that a better understanding of Chinese emissions at more disaggregated levels is essential for finding an effective mitigation measure for reducing national and regional air pollution in China.