ABSTRACT

South Africa is the dominant continental source region of CO₂ fossil fuel emissions. This is a result of the strong dependence of its economy on fossil fuels. However, the observations of atmospheric CO₂ in South Africa are inadequate. The country has the Global Atmospheric Watch (GAW) Cape Point station as the only site with long-term ambient CO₂ monitoring record. In this study, satellite data retrieved from the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) instrument on board the Aura satellite from Dec 2004 to Dec 2009 is used for the first time to quantify the spatial distribution of CO₂ over South Africa, as well as to determine its annual variability at selected sites. The study found that the surface CO₂ foot print in South Africa resembles the industrial CO₂ emission sources spatial distribution, particularly during the summer and autumn. In winter and spring seasons the surface CO₂ foot prints are spatially expanded as a result of contributions of emissions from biomass and domestic fossil fuel combustion. The surface levels of CO₂ at the study areas have been increasing during the period of the analysis.

摘要

南非是CO ₂化石燃料排放的主要大陆来源地区。这是其经济对化石燃料的强烈依赖的结果。然而，对南非大气 CO _{2的观测是不充分的。}该国拥有全球大气监视网 (GAW) 开普角站作为唯一具有长期环境 CO ₂监测记录的站点。在这项研究中，首次使用从 2004 年 12 月至 2009 年 12 月从 Aura 卫星上的对流层发射光谱仪 (TES) 仪器检索到的卫星数据来量化南非上空CO ₂的空间分布，并确定其在选定地点的年度变化。研究发现地表CO ₂南非的足迹类似于工业 CO ₂排放源的空间分布，尤其是在夏季和秋季。在冬季和春季，由于生物质和国内化石燃料燃烧产生的排放，地表 CO ₂足迹在空间上扩大。在分析期间，研究区域的表面 CO _{2水平一直在增加。}