First Concurrent Observations of NO<sub>2</sub> and CO<sub>2</sub> From Power Plant Plumes by Airborne Remote Sensing
Tamaki Fujinawa, Akihiko Kuze, Hiroshi Suto, Kei Shiomi, Yugo Kanaya, Takahiro Kawashima, Fumie Kataoka, Shigetaka Mori, Henk Eskes, Hiroshi Tanimoto
Abstract
Abstract Combined NO 2 and CO 2 observations have the potential to constrain the identification of the locations and strength of urban CO 2 emissions, in particular, point sources such as power plants. We report the first results of airborne spectroscopic NO 2 and CO 2 observations over an urban area in Japan in February 2018. Inversed emission rates of two stacks of the coal‐fired power plant for CO 2 showed relatively good agreement with those estimated by a bottom‐up inventory—the Regional Emission inventory in ASia (REAS) v3.1—within −7% to 40% because the plume shapes were well identified due to constraint by NO 2 measurements. The estimated NO x emission rates showed discrepancies more than 80% with those estimated by the REAS v3.1, mainly due to the uncertainties in activity data and emission factors, or in the greatly varying NO/NO 2 ratios in fresh plumes, which warrant further investigations when estimating NO x emissions from satellite NO 2 observations on km‐scales.