Long-term trends in black carbon from biomass and fossil fuel combustion detected at the JRC atmospheric observatory in Ispra

The concentrations of equivalent black carbon deriving from biomass burning [eBC]bb and fossil fuel combustion [eBC]ff have been estimated based on measurements of the aerosol light attenuation at several wavelengths (from infrared to ultraviolet) performed at the atmospheric observatory of the Joint Research Centre located in Ispra (Northern Italy). The data shows repeated seasonal cycles from 2004 to 2016, which suggests that winter time wood burning for domestic heating is the main biomass burning activity in this area. The [eBC]bb/[eBC]ff ratio has increased on average by +5%/yr over the 2007 – 2016 period. We compared these measurement-derived data with CO2 emissions estimated from EDGAR relative to biomass burning for domestic heating and fossil fuel combustion for transport (Diesel) and residential heating (coal + oil) in the 0.4°x0.4° area centred on Ispra. The data shows an increase in CO2 emissions from biomass burning compared to fossil fuel combustion from 2004 to 2008, and a rather constant ratio since then. There is no obvious correlation between the concentrations of [eBC] and the statistics on CO2 emissions from biofuel and fossil fuel combustion over the studied period. The impact of the economic crisis of 2009 on the use of biofuels for domestic heating cannot be rigorously demonstrated, neither from the measurement data nor from the emission inventory.JRC.C.5-Air and Climat

Preliminary exploratory impact assessment of short-lived pollutants over the Danube Basin

This report is presented as deliverable D2.3 of work package 2 of the Danube Air Nexus. It presents the results of an exploratory impact assessment of short-lived air pollutant emissions on human health, crop production and near-term climate with a focus on the Danube basin. We use a global reduced-form source receptor air quality model TM5-FASST and a recent global pollutant emission inventory (HTAP V2, 2014) to make an attribution by sector of the various impacts and to explore the challenges and opportunities for possible. Preliminary results show that trans-boundary pollution is significantly contributing to population exposure to PM2.5 in the Danube area. Dominating polluting sectors are residential sector and agriculture. We estimate that annually 170000 premature mortalities can be attributed to PM2.5 pollution in the Danube area, and annual crop losses add up to an economic value of nearly 1 billion US$. This analysis is a first step in a more detailed, country-wise analysis that will be carried out as a follow-up of this report, with an improved version of the model and specifically designed scenarios for the Danube Basin.JRC.H.2-Air and Climat

Impact evaluation of biomass used in small combustion activities sector on air emissions: Analyses of emissions from Alpine, Adriatic-Ionian and Danube EU macro-regions by using the EDGAR emissions inventory

The emissions from small stationary combustion activities sector, in particular from the energy needs for residential buildings, have significant shares in total emissions of EU28. Therefore, measures to mitigate the emissions from this less regulated sector related to implementation checking are needed. In this study, we analysed the changes in fuel mix for this sector over 1990-2012 period, the emissions and their distribution over the areas covered by European Union Strategy for Alpine macro-region (EUSALP), European Union Strategy for Adriatic and Ionian macro-region (EUSAIR) and European Union Strategy for Danube macro-region (EUSDR). The emissions gridmaps of fine particulate matter (PM2.5), black carbon (BC) and benzo(a)pyren (BaP) are presented for the year 2010; in specific circumstances, these pollutants are known to produce negative effects on health. For this research, we used the data and information of the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) versions v4.3.2 and v4.tox3. Accurate emissions estimates are important to evaluate the impacts of fuel combustion in small stationary combustion activities sector on air quality, human health and crops. Inventories of GHGs, air pollutants and toxic pollutants included in EDGAR are developed by using, as input, fuel consumption from IEA (2014) and emissions factors from scientific literature and official guidebooks such as EMEP/EEA (2013). Working together with emissions inventory experts from selected countries in these macro-regions, the effects of improvements of fuel consumption statistics, biomass in particular, on emissions in the latest years have been quantified by comparing EDGAR data with national data. Besides sectorial emissions estimation, the emissions distribution is also important in the inventory development process. In order to distribute emissions consistently for all countries included in Alpine, Adriatic-Ionian and Danube macro-regions, the EDGAR team upgraded the WEB-based gridding tool with a module for small stationary combustion activities. Emissions estimation and distribution are key elements in preparing a complete input for chemical transport models and further evaluate the impacts of these emissions on air quality, health and crops. This report aims to provide the policy makers and scientists insights on the representativeness and uncertainty of local emissions from the residential sector that play an important role on air quality. These datasets can be used as input for the atmospheric chemical transport models for air pollutants and can illustrate the importance of emission inventory uncertainties and discrepancies.JRC.C.5-Air and Climat

Fossil CO2 and GHG emissions of all world countries

The Paris Agreement plans global stocktakes, to which the UNFCCC GHG emission inventories are the primary input. To complete this picture, the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research provides for all world countries emission timeseries from 1970 until 2016 for CO2 and until 2012 for the other GHGs.JRC.C.5-Air and Climat

Investigating the shell microstructure and mineralogy of three Upper Holocene mollusc species from the Khor Rori Archaeological Park (Dhofar, Oman)

Mollusc shells are composite structures built of calcium carbonate crystals (calcite and/or aragonite) and biopolymers (protein, polysaccharides and lipids). These two classes of materials create a great variety of microstructures characterised by complex architectures and unique material properties. The formation of shell microstructures is controlled by environmental and physiological factors and the variety of microstructures is believed to be of phylogenetic and adaptive biomechanical significance. Here, through SEM and XRD analyses, we provide for the first time a detailed characterisation, description and illustration of the shell microstructure and mineralogy of three mollusc species: the bivalves Anadara uropigimelana (Bory de Saint-Vincent, 1827) and Tivela stefaninii (Nardini, 1933), and the gastropod Oliva bulbosa (Röding, 1798). The specimens were collected in the Upper Holocene HAS1 settlement and in a shell midden in the Khor Rori Archaeological Park (Oman). These species frequently occur in archaeological assemblages and show clear growth lines and increments in their shells, making them excellent tools to be used for high resolution palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental studies. However, data on their shell microstructure and mineralogy, that are fundamental for fossil shell preservation analyses, are lacking. Our results show that shells of Anadara uropigimelana are aragonitic with an outer crossed lamellar layer, an inner complex crossed lamellar layer and an irregular simple prismatic pallial myostracum; periodic bands of dendritic nondenticular composite prisms occur in the outer part of the outer layer, reflecting seasonal changes in water temperatures and growth rates. Tivela stefaninii shells are aragonitic and show an outer composite prismatic layer, a middle crossed lamellar layer, and an inner complex crossed lamellar layer. Shells of Oliva bulbosa are composed of an irregular alternation of aragonitic crossed lamellar layers; a transitional layer characterised by the occurrence of tidally controlled growth lines, a crossed lamellar callus and a myostracal layer are also described in Oliva bulbosa specimens. With this analysis, we are able to provide novel microstructural and mineralogical data on three poorly known mollusc species, which are useful for crystallographic, phylogenetic, evolutionary and palaeoenvironmental studies

Support to the improvement of national air pollutant emissions inventories for the agricultural sector in Europe

To improve the estimates of air pollutant and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agricultural activities we need transparent and harmonised emission inventories; also, we need to know how these estimates from such activities are performed and reported. This is important not only in relation to the direct impact of these activities, but also to understand their contribution in relation to other sectors such as energy, industrial processes, waste etc… The aim of this report is to provide an overview of the work done in supporting EU Member States (MS) to improve their national air pollutant emissions from agricultural activities. The work has started from the identification of methodologies and parameters needed to estimate air pollutant and GHG emissions from all agricultural sub-sectors, following the EMEP/EEA Guidebook and IPCC Guidelines. On the basis of this analysis, a database of agriculture air pollutant emission factors has been created together with a user-friendly web tool to estimate the emissions. The work done aims at providing to the EU Member States the knowledge and the actual tool neccessary to improve their reporting moving towards higher tiers methodologies. Moreover the methodology and the tool proposed will allow MS to develop air pollutant and GHG emission inventories in a consistent way using them for their reporting the template set under the Air Convention and referred to in the National Emission reduction Commitments Directive (NECD).JRC.C.5 - Air and Climat

Methodological overview on the calculation of air pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural activities

Improving the estimates of greenhouse gas (GHG) and air pollutant emissions from agricultural activities is important not only in relation to the magnitude of the impact of these activities on air quality and climate change, but also to understand their contribution in relation to other activities such as energy, industrial processes, waste etc. The complexity of the existing farming systems brings to the necessity of the transparency and harmonization on how the quantitative estimation of GHG and air pollutant emissions from such activities are performed and reported. The aim of this report is to provide an overview of the different methodologies and parameters needed to estimate air pollutant and GHG emissions from all agricultural sub-sectors, following the EMEP/EEA and IPCC guidelines. The report findings will contribute to the development of a database on activity data and emission factors as input for a tool to support the development of robust agricultural air pollutant emission inventories at Member State level.JRC.C.5-Air and Climat

Evaluating EDGARv4.tox2 speciated mercury emissions ex-post scenarios and their impacts on modelled global and regional wet deposition patterns

Speciated mercury gridded emissions inventories together with chemical transport models and concentration measurements are essential when investigating both the effectiveness of mitigation measures and the mercury cycle in the environment. Since different mercury species have contrasting behaviour in the atmosphere, their proportion in anthropogenic emissions could determine the spatial impacts. In this study, the time series from 1970 to 2012 of the EDGARv4.tox2 global mercury emissions inventory are described; the total global mercury emission in 2010 is 1772 tonnes. Global grid-maps with geospatial distribution of mercury emissions at a 0.1° × 0.1° resolution are provided for each year. Compared to the previous tox1 version, tox2 provides updates for more recent years and improved emissions in particular for agricultural waste burning, power generation and artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) sectors. We have also developed three retrospective emissions scenarios based on different hypotheses related to the proportion of mercury species in the total mercury emissions for each activity sector; improvements in emissions speciation are seen when using information primarily from field measurements. We evaluated them using the GEOS-Chem 3-D mercury model in order to explore the influence of speciation shifts, to reactive mercury forms in particular, on regional wet deposition patterns. The reference scenario S1 (EDGARv4.tox2_S1) uses speciation factors from the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP); scenario S2 (“EPA_power”) uses factors from EPA's Information Collection Request (ICR); and scenario S3 (“Asia_filedM”) factors from recent scientific publications. In the reference scenario, the sum of reactive mercury emissions (Hg-P and Hg 2+ ) accounted for 25.3% of the total global emissions; the regions/countries that have shares of reactive mercury emissions higher than 6% in total global reactive mercury are China+ (30.9%), India+ (12.5%) and the United States (9.9%). In 2010, the variations of reactive mercury emissions amongst the different scenarios are in the range of −19.3 t/yr (China+) to 4.4 t/yr (OECD_Europe). However, at the sector level, the variation could be different, e.g., for the iron and steel industry in China reaches 15.4 t/yr. Model evaluation at the global level shows a variation of approximately ±10% in wet deposition for the three emissions scenarios. An evaluation of the impact of mercury speciation within nested grid sensitivity simulations is performed for the United States and modelled wet deposition fluxes are compared with measurements. These studies show that using the S2 and S3 emissions of reactive mercury, can improve wet deposition estimates near sources

Assessing future energy GHG emission scenarios at regional scale

This feasibility study investigates how the integration of EDGAR and POLES (EDGAR-POLES) models can be used to assess future greenhouse gas (GHG) emission scenarios within energy-related sectors, focusing on the impact of alternative energy scenarios options from the POLES model and including spatially-resolved data. With the aim of supporting the objectives of the EU 2050 long-term strategy, the study evaluates the technical feasibility of employing the EDGAR-POLES framework to analyse changes in energy supply, fuel shift dynamics, and the penetration of new technologies. By narrowing its focus to energy-related sectors, the study aims to provide granular insights into the future trajectories of GHG emissions, facilitating evidence-based decision-making and targeted interventions to mitigate climate change effectively. Through collaboration with stakeholders, the study seeks to contribute to the realization of a sustainable, low-carbon future in line with EU objectivesJRC.C.5 - Clean Air and Climat

Multi-analyses investigation of Pliocene bivalve shells from the Rio Vaccaruzza section, Villalvernia (Piedmont, Italy)

Bivalve shells are recognised as one of the best biotic archives of geochemical proxies for palaeoenvironmental and palaeoclimatic reconstructions. However, before performing geochemical analyses, screening tests are crucial to examine the shell preservation and to exclude diagenetic alterations which can affect the interpretations of the results. The best way of assessing the degree of alteration is to apply as many screening tests as possible. Here, we performed a multi-analyses investigation (X-Ray Powder Diffraction, Scanning Electron Microscopy and Raman Spectroscopy) to study and check the mineralogy and the microstructure of different species belonging to two bivalve families: Glycymerididae and Pectinidae. The specimens come from Bed 3 of the Rio Vaccaruzza section, Villalvernia (Piedmont, Italy) that is characterised by a muddy ochraceous sand lithology belonging to the Sabbie di Asti Formation. The section is assigned to the middle part of the Piacenzian (Pliocene) based on planktonic foraminifera and mollusc assemblages (Pavia et al., 2022). The XRD analysis was mainly applied to species of Glycymerididae, which show aragonitic pristine shells. Instead, the microstructure of specimens of both families was analysed through SEM images highlighting the original microstructures and the absence of traces of diagenetic alteration. Preliminary data based on Raman spectroscopy displays the distribution of the two carbonate phases (aragonite and calcite) in the shells of Pectinidae and the absence of calcitic phase in the aragonitic shells of Glycymerididae. This multi-analyses investigation shows the excellent preservation of these specimens that are thus suitable for subsequent palaeoenvironmental and palaeoclimatic reconstructions