Trend analysis of carbon monoxide distributions for changes in fire vs. anthropogenic sources in diverse African regions

Abstract:

Satellite measurements of atmospheric carbon monoxide (CO) provide a signature for biomass burning and anthropogenic combustion-related pollution emissions. CO plays an important role in both air quality and climate as a precursor for tropospheric ozone and as a major sink of OH, the atmospheric “detergent” that affects the lifetime of methane and other pollutants. Worden et al., [2013] showed decreasing global CO values in time series of satellite total column CO measurements over the past decade. All of the satellite instruments that measure CO in the thermal infrared showed consistent inter-annual variability due to fires and possibly the global recession in late 2008. Observed decreases in CO over N. America and Europe were consistent with expected decreases in CO emissions inventories [Granier et al., 2011], however, the decrease is not uniform globally. In particular, Africa shows regions with smaller negative trends and potentially increasing trends in CO concentration.

Here we examine trends for surface and total column CO concentrations in Africa over 2002-2014 using MOPITT V5J data. Our hypothesis is that temporal changes in CO will have different signatures related to anthropogenic and biomass burning emissions. We use singular value decomposition (SVD) with time series from different regions based on vegetation type and population density to diagnose the dominant trends and their potential drivers.