A comparison between natural and anthropogenic emissions of the reduced sulfur compounds H2S, COS, and CS2 in a tropical industrialized region

Abstract

Extensive ambient concentration and flux measurements have been performed in the heavily polluted region of Cubatao/Brazil. Substantial contribution of anthropogenic sources to the local reduced sulfur burden has been observed. As a result of this atmospheric sulfur burden average gas exchange between vegetated soils and the atmosphere shows net deposition. Based mainly on own field measurements a local budget for H2S, COS, and CS2 has been made up in order to calculate anthropogenic emissions. All major sources and sinks in the chosen atmospheric reservoir (24×20×1 km) have been taken into account. Due to the small reservoir size fluxes across its boundaries are dominant sources and sinks. The differences between outflux and influx therefore account for the unknown anthropogenic emissions which have been determined to be 80±10 (H2S), 66±15 (COS), and 29±6 Mmol year-1 (CS2). Other sources and sinks like natural emissions, chemical conversion, and dry deposition turned out to be of minor importance on a local scale. In fact, inside the investigated reservoir natural emissions were below 0.5% of anthropogenic emissions. Anthropogenic emissions of H2S, COS, and CS2 quantified in this work have been compared with global emission estimates for these compounds made by other authors. We conclude that global anthropogenic emissions of reduced sulfur compounds especially of COS and CS2 are currently under-estimated.