Fossil Fuel Combustion Fingerprint in High-Resolution Urban Water Vapor Isotope Measurements

Abstract:

Increasing energy consumption and rapid urbanization have many important and poorly understood consequences for the hydrologic cycle in urban and suburban areas. Wide use of fossil fuels for transportation and heating releases isotopically distinctive water vapor that contributes to the overall water vapor budget in varying, usually unknown, concentrations. The use of long term, high resolution isotopic measurements can help determine different sources and proportions of water vapor at various time scales.

We present two months of high-resolution water vapor isotope measurements coupled with CO₂ concentrations and co-located meteorological observations from December 2013 – January 2014 in Salt Lake City, UT. Periods of atmospheric stagnation (cold-air inversions) show a buildup of CO₂ from baseline values of 420 ppm to as high as 600 ppm and an associated decrease in water vapor deuterium-excess values from a baseline of approx. 10‰ to values as low as -10‰ (where d = δ²H - 8*δ¹⁸O, in per mil units). We suggest that the strong relationship between CO₂and d during inversion periods is driven by the build-up of fossil fuel combustion-derived water vapor with very low d values (≤ -150‰). Based on our measurements of its isotopic composition, combustion-derived water vapor could contribute as much as 15% to the total water vapor budget during inversion periods. We present evidence of this effect at both the multi-day scale and the diurnal scale, where periods of increased automobile use and home heating can be identified. This study provides the first isotopic evidence that accumulation of water of combustion can be identified in boundary layer water vapor, suggests that an appreciable fraction of boundary layer vapor can be derived from combustion under certain atmospheric conditions, and indicates that the distinctive d values of combustion-derived vapor may be a useful tracer for this component of the atmospheric water budget in other urban regions.