Progress of Tracing Fossil Fuel CO2 by Radiocarbon in Chinese Cities |
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Authors: | Weijian Zhou Shugang Wu Xiaohu Xiong Peng Cheng Peng Wang Yaoyao Hou Zhenchuan Niu Hua Du Ning Chen Xuefeng Lu Yunchong Fu Lin Liu |
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Abstract: | The main cause of increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration is the carbon emissions from fossil fuel combustions and so on. Cities are regarded as the hot spots of carbon emissions. On the basis of obtaining the levels and spatial-temporal variation characteristics of atmospheric fossil fuel CO2 (CO2ff), we can provide scientific data for government policy-making and international negotiations on carbon reductions. In the recent ten years, some important progresses have been achieved in the study of tracing urban atmospheric CO2ff using 14C by Chinese scientists. The variation characteristics of urban CO2ff at different temporal and spatial scales were obtained through the analysis of 14C in air, tree ring and annual plant samples. Our results show that the northern cities are the key points to reduce carbon emissions, and that the CO2ff emissions can be reduced simultaneously by controlling atmospheric pollutant emissions, indicating a synergistic emission reduction. It was found that CO2ff in Xi'an was mainly from local coal-burning emissions with the use of improved WRF-CHEM model and δ13C. Finally, the yearly CO2ff traced by tree-ring 14C in Xi'an showed similar trends and amplitudes with the statistical data of carbon emissions, which indicates that the 14C tracing method and statistical method can be mutually validated to ensure the reliability of the data. In order to promote the 14C trace study to serve the national carbon emission reduction task, we suggest that the urban atmospheric Δ14CO2 observation network should be established as soon as possible, and that this study should be enhanced with more scientists involved in it and more financial resources to support it. |
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Keywords: | Fossil fuel CO2 (CO2ff) 14C tracing Source apportionment Carbon emission reduction |
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