Rapid decline in carbon monoxide emissions and export from East Asia between years 2005 and 2016

Measurements of Pollution in the Troposphere (MOPITT) satellite and ground-based carbon monoxide (CO) measurements both suggest a widespread downward trend in CO concentrations over East Asia during the period 2005-2016. This negative trend is inconsistent with global bottom-up inventories of CO emissions, which show a small increase or stable emissions in this region. We try to reconcile the observed CO trend with emission inventories using an atmospheric inversion of the MOPITT CO data that estimates emissions from primary sources, secondary production, and chemical sinks of CO. The atmospheric inversion indicates a similar to -2% yr(-1) decrease in emissions from primary sources in East Asia from 2005-2016. The decreasing emissions are mainly caused by source reductions in China. The regional MEIC inventory for China is the only bottom up estimate consistent with the inversion-diagnosed decrease of CO emissions. According to the MEIC data, decreasing CO emissions from four main sectors (iron and steel industries, residential sources, gasoline-powered vehicles, and construction materials industries) in China explain 76% of the inversion-based trend of East Asian CO emissions. This result suggests that global inventories underestimate the recent decrease of CO emission factors in China which occurred despite increasing consumption of carbon-based fuels, and is driven by rapid technological changes with improved combustion efficiency and emission control measures.

To Access Resource:

Questions? Email Resource Support Contact:

  • opensky@ucar.edu
    UCAR/NCAR - Library

Resource Type publication
Temporal Range Begin N/A
Temporal Range End N/A
Temporal Resolution N/A
Bounding Box North Lat N/A
Bounding Box South Lat N/A
Bounding Box West Long N/A
Bounding Box East Long N/A
Spatial Representation N/A
Spatial Resolution N/A
Related Links N/A
Additional Information N/A
Resource Format PDF
Standardized Resource Format PDF
Asset Size N/A
Legal Constraints

Copyright author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Access Constraints None
Software Implementation Language N/A

Resource Support Name N/A
Resource Support Email opensky@ucar.edu
Resource Support Organization UCAR/NCAR - Library
Distributor N/A
Metadata Contact Name N/A
Metadata Contact Email opensky@ucar.edu
Metadata Contact Organization UCAR/NCAR - Library

Author Zheng, B.
Chevallier, F.
Ciais, P.
Yin, Y.
Deeter, Merritt N.
Worden, Helen M.
Wang, Y.
Zhang, Q.
He, K.
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2018-04-01T00:00:00
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Not Assigned
Alternate Identifier N/A
Resource Version N/A
Topic Category geoscientificInformation
Progress N/A
Metadata Date 2025-07-11T19:40:05.015755
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:21527
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Zheng, B., Chevallier, F., Ciais, P., Yin, Y., Deeter, Merritt N., Worden, Helen M., Wang, Y., Zhang, Q., He, K.. (2018). Rapid decline in carbon monoxide emissions and export from East Asia between years 2005 and 2016. UCAR/NCAR - Library. https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7k076z3. Accessed 31 July 2025.

Harvest Source