Global black carbon emissions from 2015-2022 constrained by observations and transport modelling

Black carbon (BC) is a product of incomplete combustion, is climate relevant and has negative impacts on human health. It absorbs radiation as an aerosol in the atmosphere, but also changes the albedo of snow covered surfaces and leads to earlier melting. The origins are either anthropogenic or natural, with different annual cycles. While anthropogenic sources like domestic burning peak in the winter, natural sources like wild fires and agricultural burning peak during spring and summer. Due to its short lifetime are the global atmospheric concentrations highly variable.

We use ground based observational data from different global networks, and the atmospheric transport model FLEXPART driven by ERA5 meteorological analysis, emission inventories and the inversion framework FLEXINVERT. By minimizing the mismatch modelled and observed BC concentration we improve the emission inventories for natural emissions (GFAS) and anthropogenic emissions (LRTAP). For every year up to 50 stations are used and each observation is matched with a 50 day FLEXPART backward calculation.

We discuss the distribution and sources of global BC aerosols over the period 2015 to 2022 and compare existing emission inventories with the improved constraints of the global BC emissions derived with the FLEXINVERT inversion framework.