High resolution inventory of atmospheric emissions from livestock production, agriculture, and biomass burning sectors of Argentina

Abstract

Methane (CH4) in the atmosphere is a potent greenhouse gas (GHG) producing an important effect on the global radiative forcing. We present a high-resolution (lat. 0.025° x long. 0.025°) national emissions inventory for Argentina of methane and other species produced by livestock production, agriculture and biomass burning. Detailed maps are described for year 2016, accompanied with time series for the activity data and their respective emissions from 1990 through 2016. Argentina, as an important livestock producer has emitted in 2016, 2679.081 Gg of CH4 out of 3207.425 Gg, representing 83% of the total national methane emissions, biomass burning reached 33.36 Gg/year (1.0 %) and agriculture mainly from rice-paddy emitted 39.489 Gg/year (1.2%). Ammonia emissions, from livestock has impacted with 190.315 Gg/year (62%) and 101.723 Gg/year (33%) from agricultural practices. Regarding emissions that affected air quality, the burning of biomass has produced 590.783 Gg of CO (20%), 52.365 Gg of PM2.5 (20%) and 104.324 Gg of PM10; being the months of September, October and January the most active. The calculated emissions inventory has been compared to EDGARv4.3.2, (2015) emissions database showing an average 12% difference in methane values for years 1990-2012 for the considered sectors. Additionally, satellite data of methane column average dry air mixing ratio for years 2009-2016 using SCIAMACHY, TROPOMI (since 2018) and methane height profiles from GOSAT (since 2009) over Argentina were analyzed. Methane surface concentrations increase in the SE-NW direction, coinciding over the continental sector with an average rate of 2.2±0.5 ppb/degree (N-S) and 1.4±0.6 ppb/degree (W-E). Retrieval of the methane emissions produced from satellite measurements of methane concentrations gives acceptable confirmation of the methane emissions inventory. The present inventory complements other national inventory (Puliafito et al., 2015 and Puliafito et al., 2017) completing the first high spatial resolution emissions inventory (0.025°) for Argentina for all sectors.