Seminar

Abstract

Accurate, timely, and accessible emissions information is critical for describing and making predictions about the atmosphere. Emissions are the essential bridge between environmental science and policy. Our talk highlights a number of activities aimed at developing a better understanding of anthropogenic surface emissions of chemically active species. We discuss traditional bottom-up methods for deriving emissions and the main uncertainties on current inventories. We present differences between current global and regional inventory predictions of multi-decadal emissions changes and the modeled impacts of these changes on the atmosphere. We use case studies to demonstrate how atmospheric observations can constrain the magnitude, spatial distribution, and temporal variability of emissions. We describe the efforts of the Global Emissions InitiAtive (GEIA) and its associated projects ECCAD and CIERA to enhance access to emissions data, develop new emissions datasets, facilitate analyses to improve the scientific basis for emissions information, and strengthen linkages within the international emissions community.