Quantification of CO emissions from the city of Madrid using MOPITT satellite retrievals and WRF simulations

This method has the advantage over the existing method in that it allows both a trend analysis of CO concentrations and a quantification of CO emissions. Our analysis confirms that MOPITT is capable of detecting CO enhancements over Madrid, although significant differences remain between the yearly averaged model output and satellite measurements (R-2 = 0.75) over the city. After optimization, we find Madrid CO emissions to be lower by 48% for 2002 and by 17% for 2006 compared with the EdgarV4.2 emission inventory.

The MOPITT-derived emission adjustments lead to better agreement with the European emission inventory TNO-MAC-III for both years. This suggests that the downward trend in CO emissions over Madrid is overestimated in EdgarV4.2 and more realistically represented in TNO-MACC-III. However, our satellite and model based emission estimates have large uncertainties, around 20% for 2002 and 50% for 2006.