A178-0015
Regional emissions of HFC-23 in East Asia derived from high frequency atmospheric measurements
Tuesday, 15 December 2020
Poster
Hyeri Park1, Jooil Kim2, Sohyeon Geum1, Yeaseul Kim1, Mi-Kyung Park3, Rona Thompson4, Jens Muhle2, Peter Salameh2, Sunyoung Park1, Christina M Harth5 and Ray F Weiss2, (1)Kyungpook National University, Daegu, South Korea, (2)Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA, United States, (3)Kyungpook National University, Kyungpook Institute of Oceanography, Daegu, Korea, Republic of (South), (4)Norwegian Institute for Air Research, Kjeller, Norway, (5)University of California San Diego, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA, United States
Abstract:
Trifluoromethane (CHF
3, HFC-23) is a potent greenhouse gas that has 100-year global warming potential of 12,690 and an atmospheric lifetime of 228 years (WMO, 2018). HFC-23 is mainly emitted as a by-product during the manufacturing processes of chlorodifluoromethane (CHClF
2, HCFC-22), which is used as a refrigerant in developing countries and increasingly as feedstock mainly for the production of fluorocarbons. A recent study on global HFC-23 emissions (Stanley et al., 2020) showed significant discrepancies from an anticipated 87% reduction of global emissions for 2014-2017 by capture and destruction at HCFC-22 production facilities under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) program in contrast to an observed global emission increase. The sources of the increased HFC-23 emissions remain unknown, only implying potential existence of unreported HCFC-22 production and resulting HFC-23 by-product emissions, unexpectedly low capture and destruction rates and/or substantial end-use and associated emissions of HFC-23.
To assess the contribution of regional HFC-23 emissions from East Asia to the global increase, this study presents 10-year high frequency atmospheric measurements of HFC-23 obtained at a regional monitoring site in East Asia (Gosan station, Jeju Island, Korea; 33oN, 126oE) from 2008 to 2017. The magnitude and change in observed HFC-23 pollution events are investigated and used to estimate country-specific, annual emission magnitudes in East Asia from 2008 to 2017. The emission estimates are performed by interspecies correlation (ISC) method using atmospheric observations of CFC-11 measured at Gosan and by inverse techniques based on FLEXINVERT-Plus model (Thompson et al. 2014). Atmospheric transport is modelled using the FLEXPART Lagrangian particle dispersion model (version 10.3) with meteorological fields from the Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR) model. These ‘top-down’ estimates from East Asia are compared to inventory-based, ‘bottom-up’ emission estimates for HFC-23. We also discuss the contributions of country-specific emissions to the global total and non-Annex I countries’ emissions.
