Identification

Title

Atmospheric implications of large C2-C5 alkane emissions from the U.S. oil and gas industry

Abstract

Emissions of C-2-C-5 alkanes from the U.S. oil and gas sector have changed rapidly over the last decade. We use a nested GEOS-Chem simulation driven by updated 2011NEI emissions with aircraft, surface, and column observations to (1) examine spatial patterns in the emissions and observed atmospheric abundances of C-2-C-5 alkanes over the United States and (2) estimate the contribution of emissions from the U.S. oil and gas industry to these patterns. The oil and gas sector in the updated 2011NEI contributes over 80% of the total U.S. emissions of ethane (C2H6) and propane (C3H8), and emissions of these species are largest in the central United States. Observed mixing ratios of C-2-C-5 alkanes show enhancements over the central United States below 2km. A nested GEOS-Chem simulation underpredicts observed C3H8 mixing ratios in the boundary layer over several U.S. regions, and the relative underprediction is not consistent, suggesting C3H8 emissions should receive more attention moving forward. Our decision to consider only C-4-C-5 alkane emissions as a single lumped species produces a geographic distribution similar to observations. Due to the increasing importance of oil and gas emissions in the United States, we recommend continued support of existing long-term measurements of C-2-C-5 alkanes. We suggest additional monitoring of C-2-C-5 alkanes downwind of northeastern Colorado, Wyoming, and western North Dakota to capture changes in these regions. The atmospheric chemistry modeling community should also evaluate whether chemical mechanisms that lump larger alkanes are sufficient to understand air quality issues in regions with large emissions of these species.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7sj1pnz

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2019-01-27T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact