Atmospheric implications of large light alkane emissions from the U.S. oil and gas industry

Tzompa-Sosa, Zitely A.

Atmospheric implications of large light alkane emissions from the U.S. oil and gas industry

dc.contributor.author	Tzompa-Sosa, Zitely A.
dc.date.accessioned	2018-05-05T16:22:19Z
dc.date.available	2018-05-05T16:22:19Z
dc.date.issued	2018
dc.description	This repository contains twelve directories corresponding to each month in 2011. Inside each monthly directory, there are daily emission files for point and non-point sources over the continental U.S.
dc.description	Department of Atmospheric Science
dc.description.abstract	Emissions of non-methane light 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 atmospheric abundances of light alkanes over the U.S., 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 NEI 2011 contributes >80% of the total U.S. emissions of ethane (C2H6) and propane (C3H8), and emissions of these species are largest in the central U.S. Observed mixing ratios of C2-C5 alkanes show enhancements over the central U.S. below 2 km. 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 C4-C5 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 U.S., we recommend continued support of existing long-term measurements of C2-C5 alkanes. We suggest additional monitoring of C2-C5 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.	en_US
dc.description.sponsorship	Funding for Zitely A. Tzompa-Sosa was provided by Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT) under fellowship No. 216028 and NOAA under award number NA14OAR4310148. Support for Emily V. Fischer was provided by the NOAA under award number NA14OAR4310148. Emmanuel Mahieu is a Research Associate with the F.R.S. – FNRS. The authors thank the NOAA NDACC for FTIR solar data provided. The Toronto measurements were made at the University of Toronto Atmospheric Observatory (TAO), which has been supported by CFCAS, ABB Bomem, CFI, CSA, ECCC, NSERC, ORDCF, PREA, and the University of Toronto. Analysis of the Toronto NDACC data was supported by the CAFTON project, funded by the Canadian Space Agency's FAST Program. The National Center for Atmospheric Research is sponsored by the National Science Foundation. The NCAR FTIR program is supported under contract by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
dc.format.medium	ZIP
dc.format.medium	PDF
dc.format.medium	NetCDF
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/10217/187477
dc.identifier.uri	http://dx.doi.org/10.25675/10217/187477
dc.language	English
dc.language.iso	eng
dc.publisher	Colorado State University. Libraries
dc.relation.ispartof	Research Data
dc.relation.isreferencedby	Tzompa‐Sosa, Z. A., Henderson, B. H., Keller, C. A., Travis, K., Mahieu, E., Franco, B., et al. (2019). Atmospheric implications of large C2‐C5 alkane emissions from the U.S. oil and gas industry. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 124, 1148–1169. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018JD028955
dc.subject	oil and gas
dc.subject	alkanes
dc.subject	2011NEI
dc.title	Atmospheric implications of large light alkane emissions from the U.S. oil and gas industry	en_US
dc.type	Dataset