Preview

PDF, English - main document Download (22MB) | Terms of use

Abstract

This cumulative dissertation investigates the potential of radiocarbon (14C)-based and carbon monoxide (∆CO)-based fossil fuel CO2 (∆ffCO2) estimates from the urban observation site Heidelberg to deduce the seasonal cycle of the ffCO2 emissions in the Rhine Valley. For this, the CarboScope inversion system is used to investigate the benefit of few but accurate 14C-based ∆ffCO2 estimates from about 100 hourly flask samples collected in 2019 and 2020, compared to a continuous ∆CO-based ∆ffCO2 record with about 4 times larger uncertainty. The urban observation site with large ffCO2 point sources in the vicinity places special demands on the transport model. Therefore, a method is developed for the high-resolution Weather Research and Forecasting - Stochastic Time-Inverted Lagrangian Transport model (WRF-STILT) to represent the effective emission heights of point sources. This work shows that the 14C-based ∆ffCO2 observations contain the seasonal cycle of the ffCO2 emissions, but do not lead to robust inversion results. In contrast, the continuous ∆CO-based ∆ffCO2 estimates provide robust and data-driven seasonal cycles that show the distinct COVID-19 signal in 2020 and are suitable for validating the amplitude and phasing of the seasonal cycle of the emission inventories in the main footprint of Heidelberg.