Size-resolved global emission inventory of primary particulate matter from energy-related combustion sources

Abstract

Current emission inventories provide information about the mass emissions of different chemical species from different emitting sources without information concerning the size distribution of primary particulate matter (PM). The size distribution information, however, is an important input into chemical transport models that determine the fate of PM and its impacts on climate and public health. At present, models usually make rather rudimentary assumptions about the size distribution of primary PM emissions in their model inputs. In this study, we develop a global and regional, size-resolved, mass emission inventory of primary PM emissions from source-specific combustion components of the residential, industrial, power, and transportation sectors for the year 2010. Uncertainties in the emission profiles are also provided. The global size-resolved PM emissions show a distribution with a single peak and the majority of the mass of particles in size ranges smaller than 1 μm. The PM size distributions for different sectors and world regions vary considerably, due to the different combustion characteristics. Typically, the sizes of particles decrease in the order: power sector > industrial sector > residential sector > transportation sector. Three emission scenarios are applied to the baseline distributions to study the likely changes in size distribution of emissions as clean technologies are implemented.