Adoption of cleaner technologies and reduction in fire events in the hotspots lead to global decline in carbon monoxide

Abstract

Carbon Monoxide (CO) is not a greenhouse gas (GHG), but has the capacity to change atmospheric chemistry of other GHGs such as methane and ozone, and therefore indirectly affects Earth's radiative forcing of the GHGs and surface temperature. Here, we use the CO mixing ratio at 850 hPa from the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) reanalysis and the Measurement of Pollution in the Troposphere (MOPITT) satellite measurements for the period 2005–2019 to examine the spatio-temporal changes in CO across the latitudes. We find a substantial decrease in global CO, about −0.21 ± 0.09 ppb/yr (−0.23 ± 0.12%/yr) with the TES data and about −0.36 ± 0.07 ppb/yr (−0.45 ± 0.08%/yr) with the MOPITT satellite measurements during the study period. The highest CO decreasing trend is observed in Eastern China (−2.7 ± 0.37 ppb/yr) followed by Myanmar (−2.142 ± 0.59 ppb/yr) and South America (−1.08 ± 0.82 ppb/yr). This negative trend in CO is primarily due to the decrease in biomass burning and stringent environmental regulations in the respective regions and countries. The sources including road transport, which account for about 33.6% of CO emissions, followed by industries (18.3%) and agricultural waste burning (8.8%), might also be responsible for the reduction in CO due to the adaptation of improved emission control technology and regulations in the past decades from 2005 to 2019. Therefore, the study provides new insights on the current trends of global CO distribution and reasons for recent reduction in global CO emissions, which would be useful for future decision-making process to control air pollution.