PhD: Evaluating the UK's carbon footprint from the atmosphere and from space

The two biggest drivers of climate change, carbon dioxide and methane, are now being monitored in the atmosphere more closely than ever. Our ground-based networks are increasing in density and precision, and recently, multi-million-dollar satellite systems have been deployed to examine the carbon cycle from space. The UK is now a world-leader in the field of “top-down” evaluation of greenhouse gas emissions through the Bristol-led Deriving Emissions Related to Climate Change (DECC) network of monitoring stations, funded by the department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).However, our estimates of carbon fluxes using surface or space-based observations differ markedly over the UK and Europe, to the extent that it is unclear whether the continent is a net sink of carbon, or whether sources and sinks are approximately in balance: ground-based studies estimate that each year 1.36 ± 1.28 Gt more CO2 is taken up by the terrestrial biosphere than is emitted from all sources. In contrast, space-based observations suggest that this uptake is almost three times higher, at 3.7 ± 1 Gt/yr. Our current best estimates of CH4 emissions suggest that Europe emits the equivalent of 1.33 ± 0.3 Gt (CO2-equivalent), therefore making the continent either a significant sink or being close to breaking even, when both gases are considered together. This remains one of the most puzzling problems in our understanding of the global carbon cycle. It is also of critical importance as we continue to work with BEIS to monitor national progress towards a clean-energy economy and our obligations under the Paris Agreement and Climate Change Act (2008).

Aims and Methods

In this project, you will work closely with the Met Office, to use their Numerical Atmospheric dispersion Modelling Environment (NAME) to interpret new satellite data from NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO-2) the JAXA GOSAT instrument and the upcoming TROPOMI instrument. You will develop new Bayesian methodologies to derive fluxes and explore the sensitivity of these estimates to potential biases in the observing systems or the models. The primary outcomes will be better-constrained carbon fluxes for the UK and Europe, which will be fed back to BEIS to improve the UK’s CO2 and CH4 inventory.

Candidate

The project would suit a student with a first degree in physical or computational sciences or mathematics and a desire to develop a range new skills. Although this project primarily focuses on modelling and mathematics, there is the potential to participate in field and lab work that is on-going in the Atmospheric Chemistry Research Group (ACRG). The project does not require a background in Chemistry.

Case Award

The student will spend a minimum of 3 months at the CASE Partner, the Met Office, over the duration of the project. The CASE supervisor, Dr. Alistair Manning, a world-renowned expert in trace gas inverse modelling, visits the ACRG every month for project meetings.

Training

The student will receive training in atmospheric modelling and Bayesian methods from ACRG staff, the Met Office and international partners (e.g. MIT and NASA JPL). The student will join several on-going international collaborations, including the Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment (AGAGE), of which the ACRG is a key member. It is envisaged that the student will spend at least two weeks working with AGAGE collaborators at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to facilitate knowledge sharing in inverse methods. The student will participate in at least one field visit to a UK DECC network monitoring site and an AGAGE station (e.g. in Barbados, Svalbard, California, Ireland, etc.) to learn about trace gas measurement techniques. The student will collaborate with scientists working on remote sensing of CO2 and CH4 at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the University of Leicester.

Supervisor: Dr Matthew Rigby