Identification

Title

Evaluating ethane and methane emissions associated with the development of oil and natural gas extraction in North America

Abstract

Sharp rises in the atmospheric abundance of ethane (Câ‚‚Hâ‚†) have been detected from 2009 onwards in the Northern Hemisphere as a result of the unprecedented growth in the exploitation of shale gas and tight oil reservoirs in North America. Using time series of Câ‚‚Hâ‚† total columns derived from ground-based Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) observations made at five selected Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change sites, we characterize the recent Câ‚‚Hâ‚† evolution and determine growth rates of ~5% yrâ»Â¹ at mid-latitudes and of ~3% yrâ»Â¹ at remote sites. Results from CAM-chem simulations with the Hemispheric Transport of Air Pollutants, Phase II bottom-up inventory for anthropogenic emissions are found to greatly underestimate the current Câ‚‚Hâ‚† abundances. Doubling global emissions is required to reconcile the simulations and the observations prior to 2009. We further estimate that North American anthropogenic Câ‚‚Hâ‚† emissions have increased from 1.6 Tg yrâ»Â¹ in 2008 to 2.8 Tg yrâ»Â¹ in 2014, i.e. by 75% over these six years. We also completed a second simulation with new top-down emissions of Câ‚‚Hâ‚† from North American oil and gas activities, biofuel consumption and biomass burning, inferred from space-borne observations of methane (CHâ‚„) from Greenhouse Gases Observing SATellite. In this simulation, GEOS-Chem is able to reproduce FTIR measurements at the mid-latitudinal sites, underscoring the impact of the North American oil and gas development on the current Câ‚‚Hâ‚† abundance. Finally we estimate that the North American oil and gas emissions of CHâ‚„, a major greenhouse gas, grew from 20 to 35 Tg yrâ»Â¹ over the period 2008-2014, in association with the recent Câ‚‚Hâ‚† rise.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7dz09vf

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

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South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-04-07T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

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Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact