A lecture on “Use of Atmospheric Measurements for Emission Verification” will be delivered by Dr. Prabir Kumar Patra at the Geoinformatics Center of the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) on 17 July 2012 from 10.00-11.00 hours at the Geoinformatics Center.
Abstract:
Atmospheric measurements record the emisions and sinks of greenhouse gases (GHGs), occurring at the earth's surface or in the atmosphere. We use an atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM)-based chemistry-transport model (ACTM) and emission inventories to simulate the atmospheric concentrations of CO2, CH4, N2O and some halogenated species. From the differences between forward model simulations and measurements, and source-receptor relationships we estimate the corrections to emission inventories for a given time interval and spatial resolution (referred to as top-down estimation or inverse modelling). While the release of emission inventories is typically delayed by several years and rely entirely on the country statistics (bottom-up estimation), the inversion estimate can play significant role in verifying bottom-up values. It must be noted that the top-down calculations at the present suffer from lack of atmospheric measurements and forward transport model errors.
About the speaker:
Dr. Prabir Kumar Patra is currently a senior scientist in Research Institute for Global Change, Yokohama, Japan. He has a Ph.D. degree in Physics and Atmospheric Science from Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), India. His research interests are atmospheric and oceanic sciences. His current research interests are:
He is currently working in:
1) Estimation of regional sources and sinks of CO2, CH4, N2O, SF6, and halocarbons using forward chemistry-transport model, observational data and inverse model.
2) Analysis and use of remote sensingobservations of trace gases to study atmospheric processes.