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Title	Integrated observations and modelling of greenhouse gas budgets at the national level in the Netherlands
Period	11 / 2005 - 12 / 2010
Status	Current
Dissertation	Yes
URL	http://www.alterra.wur.nl/UK/research/Specialisation+water+and+climate/ESSCC/KvR-ME2/
URL	http://edepot.wur.nl/166612
URL	http://edepot.wur.nl/166613
URL	http://edepot.wur.nl/166614
URL	http://edepot.wur.nl/166615
URL	http://edepot.wur.nl/166616
Research number	OND1310557

Abstract

Introduction
In Kyoto, countries agreed to reduce their anthropogenic greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions by 8 % in 2008 2012, relative to (for most GHG's) the emissions in 1990. The Netherlands committed itself to reductions of 6 %. For the period after that, the required emission reductions will more likely be on the order of 30 % or more, on which the negotiations will start soon. Such reductions require wide-spread measures in all economic sectors with often only small incremental contributions. The achieved reductions will be reported following standard IPCC-Guidelines. Basically, this is a bottom-up summation over various (anthropogenic) activities of the products of the volume of that activity and an emission factor. As reductions become more and more challenging to achieve, and as penalties for non-compliance may become more serious, the need for independent verification mechanisms at country level at first, later perhaps at smaller administrative units will increase.

Eventually, emission reductions should have observable effects on atmospheric concentrations of GHGs. These concentrations should be the basis of an independent, top-down approach to verify the emission reductions. Inverse methods provide such an approach. Atmospheric concentrations of GHGs are determined by the net flux in and out of the atmosphere. For the three primary GHGs, CO2, CH4 and N2O, the magnitude of natural fluxes are of similar orders of magnitude as anthropogenic emissions (others like SF6, HFCs, etc. are of almost exclusively anthropogenic origin). So, an important pre-requisite for any verification methodology is that it should be able to separate the two natural vs. anthropogenic contributions.

Inverse methods use actually measured time series of a particular greenhouse-gas mixing-ratio at one or more sites, together with transport and diffusion information from an atmospheric model to improve the source/sink distributions of that greenhouse gas in time and space. A source/sink distribution must be provided to the inverse computation scheme that will be improved towards values more in agreement with the observed concentration fields. The method so-far has been used mostly at larger, continental to global scales (e.g., Bousquet et al. 1999a,b), but in principle can be used at smaller scales, too (Hensen et al.,1999; Dolman et al., 2004). Thus, it can provide a tool to verify the emissions at roughly national and perhaps sub-national levels. However, the challenges of developing a verification tool at these relative small scales are large and in part of a different nature than those developed for continental to global scales. These have to do with the very large variability of fluxes in landscapes exhibiting, e.g. cities and forests, covariance of fluxes and atmospheric PBL-dynamics and the resulting problems of representativeness and aggregation of data. Therefore, at these scales, it is imperative to make use of all of the constraints provided/imposed by different data streams, and by process knowledge of ecosystem behaviour (natural and man-made) and of atmospheric dynamics as embodied in state-of-the-art models.

Based on the above situation sketch, the overall objective of the current research proposal is:

To develop an advanced GHG-information system consisting of a comprehensive set of monitoring systems, combined with a complementary suite of 3D-models that is able to quantify the magnitude, trends and associated uncertainties of the biogenic and anthropogenic greenhouse-gas budgets high spatial and temporal resolutions. While doing so, we will develop a protocol to provide an independent reference estimate for the verification of national emissions reported by the parties in the UNFCCC and Kyoto framework.

A lot of research addressing the above issues at the regional scale is of relative recent origin, and large efforts are currently being made by U.S. and European consortia. Dutch participation, by partners also contributing to the present proposal, in European frameworks has been and still is highly significant and visible. The present proposal aims to continue this situation by providing on one hand the individual partners the possibility to continue playing this role in their respective niches, while by providing an integrated framework and end-target on the other hand we will enable the consortium as a whole to make definite steps towards actually reaching GHG-budget closure at regional scales. The latter objective, which is of high international scientific and political relevance, can never be realized from individual grants alone, and as such, only the CcSP-grant may provide a sufficient level of thrust to achieve the ambitious goals of this proposal.

Objectives:

The objectives of the proposed research activities are:

To develop the elements of an advanced GHG information system, - consisting of on one hand a complementary set of surface, tower based, airborne and remote sensing monitoring systems, and on the other hand a complementary suite of forward and inverse, lagrangian and eulerian 3D models

To quantify the magnitude, trends and associated uncertainties of the biogenic and anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and atmospheric budgets at spatial resolutions of roughly 50 km (implying grid sizes of 10 km and less) for a domain of 400 x 400 km, and at temporal resolutions of 1 month for at least a single full year (model time steps are much shorter of course), making use of all constraints imposed by the respective elements of the GHG information system

To develop a protocol to provide an independent reference estimate for the verification of national emissions, that allows determination of the accuracy and some of the uncertainties of the emissions reported by the parties in the UNFCCC and Kyoto framework, through critical evaluation of all elements making up the information system and of all necessary steps involved in reaching GHG estimates.

Therefore a research plan is proposed consisting of five complementary work packages, the objectives of which comprise the following:

1.To develop for this particular spatial scale a cost-efficient observation network and sampling protocol to quantify, continuously in time and space, the sources and sinks of GHG's and aerosols. Use will be made of:

Continuous ground based remote sensing measurements of atmospheric column properties

An observation network monitoring PBL height dynamics and its primary driver (sensible heat flux) combining ceilometers and scintillometers

Satellite based GHG mapping

Continuous tall-tower atmospheric concentration monitoring

Repetitive airborne flux measurements

To produce unique data-sets needed for development of the above, consisting of:

Continuous time series of PBL height at multiple sites in The Netherlands

Continuous, high precision time series of GHG concentrations and supplementary tracers at multiple levels and at two sites in The Netherlands

Daily estimates of source area for tower observations, based on back-trajectories

Systematic airborne flux and concentration transects, sampling the full seasonal cycle and major landscapes in The Netherlands

Flux maps, continuous in space and time, for inversion estimates

Problem oriented data-sets for PBL studies, for specific areas and for specific seasonal phases.

3. To further the development of 3D transport models, improved with respect to:

Vertical mixing through implementation of state-of-the-art PBL parameterizations, including entrainment and if needed GHG-specific flux/profile relations

GHG nudging algorithms i.e. offline coupling between complementary models

Improved bottom-boundary conditions (LSMs, otherwise prescribed fluxes)

Additional GHG species transport: CH4, N2O, isotopes, CO.

4.To develop inversion algorithms, based on eularian and lagrangian concepts, improved with respect to:

Input flexibility: allowing the use of concentration flux data that are (relatively) irregularly distributed in space and time

An assessment of uncertainties as can be attributed to a) variation between transport models and b) variation between inversion algorithms

The use of high-frequency variation in the concentration time series (increased resolution in time and space)

5.To make a first attempt ever at independently verifying Dutch national emissions, as reported in the UNFCCC-NIR, for one particular year

6.To outline a verification

Abstract (NL)

Belangrijk doel van dit project is het ontwikkelen van een prototype operationeel systeem voor het kwantificeren van de grootte van het broeikasgasbudget op landelijke en regionale schaal en de daarmee geassocieerde onzekerheden. Verder zal een protocol ontwikkeld worden om een referentieschatting te maken ten behoeve van de verificatie van nationale emissies, die het mogelijk maakt de nauwkeurigheid en geloofwaardigheid van de UNFCCC en Kyoto rapportages te verifiëren. Dit project zal informatie betrekken van en leveren aan onder andere ME1 en ME3. Het een bron van informatie voor projecten onder de overige thema s

Related organisations

Secretariat	Climate changes Spatial Planning (IenM)
Collaboration	Alterra (WUR)
Collaboration	VU University Amsterdam (VU)
Collaboration	National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (VWS)
Collaboration	Energy research Centre of the Netherlands - ECN (ECN)
Collaboration	University of Groningen (RUG)
Collaboration	Delft University of Technology (TUD)
Collaboration	SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research (NWO)
Collaboration	Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (IenM)

Related people

Supervisor	Prof.dr. A.A.M. Holtslag
Co-supervisor	Dr.ir. C.M.J. Jacobs
Project leader	Dr. R.W.A. Hutjes
Project leader	Prof.dr. P. Kabat
Doctoral/PhD student	Drs. P.C. Stolk

Classification

A10000	Exploitation and management physical environment
C50000	Environmental studies
D16800	Computer simulation, virtual reality