Simulating the integrated summertime Δ14CO2 signature from anthropogenic emissions over Western Europe
Item
Title (Dublin Core)
Simulating the integrated summertime Δ14CO2 signature from anthropogenic emissions over Western Europe
Description (Dublin Core)
Radiocarbon dioxide (<sup>14</sup>CO<sub>2</sub>, reported in Δ<sup>14</sup>CO<sub>2</sub>) can be used to determine the fossil fuel CO<sub>2</sub> addition to the atmosphere, since fossil fuel CO<sub>2</sub> no longer contains any <sup>14</sup>C. After the release of CO<sub>2</sub> at the source, atmospheric transport causes dilution of strong local signals into the background and detectable gradients of Δ<sup>14</sup>CO<sub>2</sub> only remain in areas with high fossil fuel emissions. This fossil fuel signal can moreover be partially masked by the enriching effect that anthropogenic emissions of <sup>14</sup>CO<sub>2</sub> from the nuclear industry have on the atmospheric Δ<sup>14</sup>CO<sub>2</sub> signature. In this paper, we investigate the regional gradients in <sup>14</sup>CO<sub>2</sub> over the European continent and quantify the effect of the emissions from nuclear industry. We simulate the emissions and transport of fossil fuel CO<sub>2</sub> and nuclear <sup>14</sup>CO<sub>2</sub> for Western Europe using the Weather Research and Forecast model (WRF-Chem) for a period covering 6 summer months in 2008. We evaluate the expected CO<sub>2</sub> gradients and the resulting Δ<sup>14</sup>CO<sub>2</sub> in simulated integrated air samples over this period, as well as in simulated plant samples. <br><br> We find that the average gradients of fossil fuel CO<sub>2</sub> in the lower 1200 m of the atmosphere are close to 15 ppm at a 12 km × 12 km horizontal resolution. The nuclear influence on Δ<sup>14</sup>CO<sub>2</sub> signatures varies considerably over the domain and for large areas in France and the UK it can range from 20 to more than 500% of the influence of fossil fuel emissions. Our simulations suggest that the resulting gradients in Δ<sup>14</sup>CO<sub>2</sub> are well captured in plant samples, but due to their time-varying uptake of CO<sub>2</sub>, their signature can be different with over 3‰ from the atmospheric samples in some regions. We conclude that the framework presented will be well-suited for the interpretation of actual air and plant <sup>14</sup>CO<sub>2</sub> samples.
Creator (Dublin Core)
Bozhinova, D.
Molen, M. K.
Velde, I. R.
Krol, M. C.
Laan, S.
Meijer, H. A. J.
Peters, W.
Date (Dublin Core)
2018-09-11
Type (Dublin Core)
Text
Format (Dublin Core)
application/pdf
Identifier (Dublin Core)
10.5194/acp-14-7273-2014
https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/14/7273/2014/
Source (Dublin Core)
eISSN: 1680-7324
Language (Dublin Core)
eng
