Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

Space-based detection of missing sulfur dioxide sources of global air pollution

Nature Geoscience volume 9, pages 496–500 (2016)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Sulfur dioxide is designated a criteria air contaminant (or equivalent) by virtually all developed nations. When released into the atmosphere, sulfur dioxide forms sulfuric acid and fine particulate matter, secondary pollutants1 that have significant adverse effects on human health2,3,4,5, the environment1 and the economy5. The conventional, bottom-up emissions inventories used to assess impacts, however, are often incomplete or outdated, particularly for developing nations that lack comprehensive emission reporting requirements and infrastructure. Here we present a satellite-based, global emission inventory for SO2 that is derived through a simultaneous detection, mapping and emission-quantifying procedure, and thereby independent of conventional information sources. We find that of the 500 or so large sources in our inventory, nearly 40 are not captured in leading conventional inventories. These missing sources are scattered throughout the developing world—over a third are clustered around the Persian Gulf—and add up to 7 to 14 Tg of SO2 yr−1, or roughly 6–12% of the global anthropogenic source. Our estimates of national total emissions are generally in line with conventional numbers, but for some regions, and for SO2 emissions from volcanoes, discrepancies can be as large as a factor of three or more. We anticipate that our inventory will help eliminate gaps in bottom-up inventories, independent of geopolitical borders and source types.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Demonstration of source-detection method over selected regions.
Figure 2: Satellite detection of emission sources in the Persian Gulf.
Figure 3: Summary of satellite-derived missing sources and inventory totals.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Seinfeld, J. H. & Pandis, S. N. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 2nd edn (Wiley, 2006).

    Google Scholar 

  2. Lelieveld, J. et al. The contribution of outdoor air pollution sources to premature mortality on a global scale. Nature 525, 367–371 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Lim, S. S. et al. A comparative risk assessment of burden of disease and injury attributable to 67 risk factors and risk factor clusters in 21 regions, 1990–2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010. Lancet 380, 2224–2260 (2012); correction 381, 628 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Prüss-Ustün, A. et al. Preventing Disease through Healthy Environments: A Global Assessment of the Burden of Disease from Environmental Risks (World Health Organization, 2016); http://www.who.int/quantifying_ehimpacts/publications/preventing-disease/en

    Google Scholar 

  5. The Cost of Air Pollution: Health Impacts of Road Transport (OECD, 2014).

  6. Lamsal, L. N. et al. Application of satellite observations for timely updates to global anthropogenic NOx emission inventories. Geophys. Res. Lett. 38, L05810 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Martin, R. V. Satellite remote sensing of surface air quality. Atmos. Environ. 42, 7823–7843 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Streets, D. G. et al. Emissions estimation from satellite retrievals: a review of current capability. Atmos. Environ. 77, 1011–1042 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Beirle, S. et al. Megacity emissions and lifetimes of nitrogen oxides probed from space. Science 333, 1737–1739 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Fioletov, V. E., McLinden, C. A., Krotkov, N. & Li, C. Lifetimes and emissions of SO2 from point sources estimated from OMI. Geophys. Res. Lett. 42, 1969–1976 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. de Foy, B. et al. Estimates of power plant NOx emissions and lifetimes from OMI NO2 satellite retrievals. Atmos. Environ. 116, 1–11 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Li, C., Joiner, J., Krotkov, N. A. & Bhartia, P. K. A fast and sensitive new satellite SO2 retrieval algorithm based on principal component analysis: application to the ozone monitoring instrument. Geophys. Res. Lett. 40, 6314–6318 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Levelt, P. F. et al. The ozone monitoring instrument. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote 44, 1093–1101 (2006).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Dee, D. P. et al. The ERA-Interim reanalysis: configuration and performance of the data assimilation system. Q. J. R. Meteorol. Soc. 137, 553–597 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Pommier, M., McLinden, C. A. & Deeter, M. Relative changes in CO emissions over megacities based on observations from space. Geophys. Res. Lett. 40, 3766–3771 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Janssens-Maenhout, G. et al. HTAP_v2: a mosaic of regional and global emission gridmaps for 2008 and 2010 to study hemispheric transport of air pollution. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 15, 11411–11432 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Granier, C. et al. Evolution of anthropogenic and biomass burning emissions of air pollutants at global and regional scales during the 1980–2010 period. Climatic Change 109, 163–190 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Janssens-Maenhout, G., Pagliari, V., Guizzardi, D. & Muntean, M. Global Emission Inventories in the Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) Manual (I): Gridding: EDGAR Emissions Distribution on Global Gridmaps JRC Report EUR 25785 EN (2013); http://dx.doi.org/10.2788/81454

  19. Night Lights 2012—The Black Marble (NASA Earth Observatory, 2012); http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=79803

  20. Davis, C. B. et al. Enipedia & Energy Industry Group, Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management (TU Delft, 2015); http://enipedia.tudelft.nl

    Google Scholar 

  21. Bucsela, E. J. et al. A new stratospheric and tropospheric NO2 retrieval algorithm for nadir-viewing satellite instruments: applications to OMI. Atmos. Meas. Tech. 6, 2607–2626 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Reuter, M. et al. Decreasing emissions of NOx relative to CO2 in East Asia inferred from satellite observations. Nature Geosci. 7, 792–795 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Oda, T. & Maksyutov, S. A very high-resolution (1 km × 1 km) global fossil fuel CO2 emission inventory derived using a point source database and satellite observations of nighttime lights. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 11, 543–556 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Zhao, Y., Zhang, J. & Nielse, C. P. The effects of energy paths and emission controls and standards on future trends in China’s emissions of primary air pollutants. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 14, 8849–8868 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Klimont, Z., Smith, S. J. & Cofala, J. The last decade of global anthropogenic sulfur dioxide: 2000–2011 emissions. Environ. Res. Lett. 8, 014003 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Sparks, R. S. J., Biggs, J. & Neuberg, J. W. Monitoring volcanoes. Science 335, 1310–1311 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Diehl, T. et al. Anthropogenic, biomass burning, and volcanic emissions of black carbon, organic carbon, and SO2 from 1980 to 2010 for hindcast model experiments. Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss. 12, 24895–24954 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Keller, C. A. et al. HEMCO v1.0: a versatile, ESMF-compliant component for calculating emissions in atmospheric models. Geosci. Model Dev. 7, 1409–1417 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Global Sources of Local Pollution: An Assessment of Long-Range Transport of Key Air Pollutants to and from the United States (National Academies, 2010).

  30. Chance, K. et al. in Proc. SPIE 8866, Earth Observing Systems XVIII (eds Butler, J. J., Xiong, X. & Gu, X.) (SPIE, 2013).

    Google Scholar 

  31. Krotkov, N. A. et al. Aura OMI observations of regional SO2 and NO2 pollution changes from 2005 to 2015. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 16, 4605–4629 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Background Information about the Row Anomaly in OMI (OMI, 2012); http://projects.knmi.nl/omi/research/product/rowanomaly-background.php

  33. McLinden, C. A. et al. Improved satellite retrievals of NO2 and SO2 over the Canadian oil sands and comparisons with surface measurements. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 14, 3637–3656 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. von Engeln, A. & Teixeira, J. A planetary boundary layer height climatology derived from ECMWF Re-analysis data. J. Clim. 26, 6575–6590 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Hsu, N. C. et al. Global and regional trends of aerosol optical depth over land and ocean using SeaWiFS measurements from 1997 to 2010. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 12, 8037–8053 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. Halmer, M. M. et al. The annual volcanic gas input into the atmosphere, in particular into the stratosphere: a global data set for the past 100 years. J. Volcanol. Geotherm. Res. 115, 511–528 (2002).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Stuefer, M. et al. Inclusion of ash and SO2 emissions from volcanic eruptions in WRF-Chem: development and some applications. Geosci. Model Dev. 6, 457–468 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

R.V.M. was supported by Environment and Climate Change Canada. N.K., C.L. and J.J. acknowledge NASA funding through the Aura science team programme for OMI SO2 product development and analysis. The Dutch–Finnish-built OMI instrument is part of the NASA’s EOS Aura satellite payload. The OMI project is managed by KNMI and the Netherlands Space Office (NSO). The authors acknowledge ECMWF for the provision of their ERA-interim reanalysis data. C.A.M. thanks H. Morrison for commenting on earlier versions of the manuscript.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Air Quality Research Division, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Toronto M3H 5T4, Canada

    Chris A. McLinden, Vitali Fioletov, Mark W. Shephard & Michael D. Moran

  2. Atmospheric Chemistry and Dynamics Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771, USA

    Nick Krotkov, Can Li & Joanna Joiner

  3. Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA

    Can Li

  4. Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 4R2, Canada

    Randall V. Martin

  5. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA

    Randall V. Martin

Authors
  1. Chris A. McLinden
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Vitali Fioletov
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Mark W. Shephard
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Nick Krotkov
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Can Li
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Randall V. Martin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Michael D. Moran
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. Joanna Joiner
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

C.A.M., V.F. and M.W.S. planned the research and developed the algorithm, C.A.M. and V.F. performed the computations and analysis, N.K., C.L. and J.J. provided the satellite data, C.A.M. wrote the paper, and all authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chris A. McLinden.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Information (PDF 2621 kb)

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Information (XLSX 36 kb)

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Information (ZIP 187 kb)

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Information (ZIP 7465 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

McLinden, C., Fioletov, V., Shephard, M. et al. Space-based detection of missing sulfur dioxide sources of global air pollution. Nature Geosci 9, 496–500 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2724

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2724

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing