- Year Funded: 2008
- Principal Investigators: Scott Lehman, University of Colorado
- Programs: AC4 Funded Project
- Anthropogenic Sources, carbon fluxes, North America
- Google Scholar Link
The PIs previously developed a capability to measure 14CO2 in small air samples and isolate fossil fuel and biological contributions to observed CO2 variations in boundary layer air sampled in vertical aircraft profiles. This project will expand on that work by using 14CO2 measurements to evaluate a large suite of prospective fossil fuel tracers (including CO, SF6, HFC-134a, HCFC-22, dichloromethane, perchloro-ethylene, and benzene) which are seasonally correlated with CO2. These tracers are easier and cheaper to measure accurately. If a subset of these tracers yields consistent emissions with respect to fossil fuel CO2 (determined using 14CO2 measurements) across diverse urban and industrial sampling domains around the US, they can then be used to isolate the fossil fuel and biological contributions to the observed CO2 signal throughout the North American portion of the NOAA/GMD sampling.