Challenges in Monitoring Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations in Seoul Using Low-Cost Sensors

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

With the increasing importance of monitoring and verifying urban CO2 concentrations to mitigate carbon emissions from cities, a high-resolution ground networks of low-cost CO2 sensors are emerging that have a price advantage over existing high-cost sensors. This study develops a low-cost CO2 instrument called the Seoul National University CO2 Measurement (SNUCO2M) to monitor and analyze intra-city CO2 concentrations over Seoul, Korea. The first step of establishing this low-cost CO2 sensor network involved installing the SNUCO2M at the Yongsan Building (YSB; 113 m MASL) and Namsan Seoul Tower-High (NSTH; 385 m MASL) on October 18, 2018 and July 8, 2019, respectively. For comparison with the SNUCO2M, we utilized CO2 concentrations measured by the Picarro instrument (high-cost CO2 sensor) at Gwanak Mountain (GWA) background measurement site and the lower part of the NST (NSTL). The initial CO2 measurements from the SNUCO2M, show that 1) the SNUCO2M has a 0.71% maximum error range and is sufficient to measure urban atmospheric CO2 concentrations; and 2) the SNUCO2M captures 26.92 and 20.30 ppm of Seoul’s summer and winter time CO2 enhancement compared to the GWA background site. Our results suggest that the low-cost sensors such as SNUCO2M successfully detect urban CO2 characteristics over the megacity and has great potential to replace high-cost sensors with cost and management limitations.