Abstract
The Paris Agreement of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is a binding international treaty signed by 196 nations to limit their greenhouse gas emissions through ever-reducing Nationally Determined Contributions and a system of 5-yearly Global Stocktakes in an Enhanced Transparency Framework. To support this process, the European Commission initiated the design and development of a new Copernicus service element that will use Earth observations mainly to monitor anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The CO2 Human Emissions (CHE) project has been successfully coordinating efforts of its 22 consortium partners, to advance the development of a European CO2 monitoring and verification support (CO2MVS) capacity for anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Several project achievements are presented and discussed here as examples. The CHE project has developed an enhanced capability to produce global, regional and local CO2 simulations, with a focus on the representation of anthropogenic sources. The project has achieved advances towards a CO2 global inversion capability at high resolution to connect atmospheric concentrations to surface emissions. CHE has also demonstrated the use of Earth observations (satellite and ground-based) as well as proxy data for human activity to constrain uncertainties and to enhance the timeliness of CO2 monitoring. High-resolution global simulations (at 9 km) covering the whole of 2015 (labelled CHE nature runs) fed regional and local simulations over Europe (at 5 km and 1 km resolution) and supported the generation of synthetic satellite observations simulating the contribution of a future dedicated Copernicus CO2 Monitoring Mission (CO2M).
Highlights
The CO2 Human Emissions project (CHE, https://che-project.eu/) has responded to the task set by the European Commission to coordinate and support the development of a European capacity to monitor anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions
This paper summarises some of the key achievements towards the development of a CO2 monitoring and verification support (CO2MVS) prototype, as well as the definition of an implementation plan which includes requirements and priorities in consideration of the calendar described within the Paris Agreement and in the European Commission CO2 Task Force reports (Ciais et al, 2016; Pinty et al, 2017; Pinty et al, 2019; the CO2 blue, red, and green reports respectively, https://www.copernicus.eu/en/news/ news/new-co2-green-report-2019-published)
The capacity to assimilate a large amount of remote sensing data informative of atmospheric concentrations and optimally combined with atmospheric composition and transport modelling, is a clear advantage of the integrated approach developed in CHE, which extend this capability for generating a posterior fossil fuel CO2 emission estimate, consistently integrating both Earth observations and process knowledge accounting for the uncertainties in each of the building blocks
Summary
The CO2 Human Emissions project (CHE, https://che-project.eu/) has responded to the task set by the European Commission to coordinate and support the development of a European capacity to monitor anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Designed as a Coordination and Support Action, CHE has advanced on the building blocks of a CO2 Monitoring and Verification Support (CO2MVS) for the Paris Agreement of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) This historical binding pact signed by 196 nations in 2015, aims at limiting greenhouse gas emissions through Nationally Determined Contributions and a 5-yearly Global Stocktakes process that sit in an Enhanced Transparency Framework. To support this process the European Commission initiated the design and development of a new Copernicus service element that will use Earth observations (EOs) to mainly target anthropogenic CO2 emissions. A description of the methodology developed, and selected results, are presented to provide a synthesis of the key CHE achievements in this first phase of the CO2MVS development, which continues within the Copernicus CO2 Prototype project and are embedded in the evolution of the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring and Climate Change Services (CAMS and C3S)
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