EGU21-8979, updated on 04 Mar 2021
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-8979
EGU General Assembly 2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Space-based detection of CO2 emission reductions due to COVID-19 at Europe's largest fossil fuel power plant and implications for CO2 emission monitoring

Ray Nassar1, Jon-Paul Mastrogiacomo2, William Bateman-Hemphill2, Callum McCracken2, Cameron MacDonald2,3, Tim Hill2, Chris O'Dell4, Robert Nelson5, Mattheaus Kiel5, Ryan Pavlick5, Annmarie Eldering5, and David Crisp5
Ray Nassar et al.
  • 1Environment and Climate Change Canada, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (ray.nassar@canada.ca)
  • 2University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
  • 3Now at Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA
  • 4Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA
  • 5Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA

In 2020, many countries implemented lockdowns to control the spread of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), leading to reported decreases in anthropogenic CO2 emissions based on bottom-up estimates. Some studies reported that the resulting atmospheric CO2 changes were below the detection limit of current observing systems on the ground or in space. We quantify CO2 emissions from Europe’s largest fossil fuel burning power plant before and during lockdown using space-based CO2 observations from NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) 2 and 3 missions. The results show clear emission reductions of >20% in April 2020, demonstrating the ability of space-based CO2 observations to quantify emission reductions at the facility level. This research reinforces the value of space-based CO2 data for verifying future CO2 emission reductions expected from climate change mitigation policies and the importance of monitoring emissions at sub-national scales.

How to cite: Nassar, R., Mastrogiacomo, J.-P., Bateman-Hemphill, W., McCracken, C., MacDonald, C., Hill, T., O'Dell, C., Nelson, R., Kiel, M., Pavlick, R., Eldering, A., and Crisp, D.: Space-based detection of CO2 emission reductions due to COVID-19 at Europe's largest fossil fuel power plant and implications for CO2 emission monitoring, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-8979, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-8979, 2021.

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