Analyzing the geographical distribution of carbon dioxide (CO₂) is essential for understanding the influence and structural nature of area-specific sectoral emissions in the total carbon budget. In this practice, the implementations of specific accounting and spatial attribution methods are criticized for multiple sources of uncertainties. Therefore, estimated emissions may bring forth unreliable conclusions to analyze and understand the spatial variation and associated hypothesized anthropogenic sources in this gas’ biophysical cyclical process. This paper examined the relations among the observed atmospheric phenomenon of column-averaged CO₂ (XCO₂) and the hypothesized major anthropogenic emissions and sources to understand their influences on the spatial variation of annual XCO₂ concentration at the county-level contiguous USA (CONUS). Specifically, this paper explored the spatial distribution of XCO₂ in the CONUS by processing the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) satellite-based observed database of XCO₂. The study found that observed XCO₂ and interpolated data can represent the annual spatial variation of XCO₂ at the county level of CONUS. The study established that industrial locations and emissions play a major role in the spatial variation of XCO₂ in the CONUS regardless of the direct emissions from other anthropogenic sources (i.e., transport, residential) and the urban and rural nature of the counties. The study found that in 2017, 2634.92 Million Tons (MTons) industrial emissions increased the level of XCO₂ by 0.0621 ppm in the CONUS.

分析二氧化碳 (CO ₂ )的地理分布对于了解特定区域部门排放在总碳预算中的影响和结构性质至关重要。在这种实践中，特定核算和空间归因方法的实施因多种不确定性来源而受到批评。因此，估计排放量可能会得出不可靠的结论，以分析和理解该气体生物物理循环过程中的空间变化和相关的假设人为来源。本文研究了观测到的柱平均 CO ₂ (XCO ₂) 和假设的主要人为排放和来源，以了解它们对县级毗邻美国 (CONUS)年 XCO ₂浓度空间变化的影响。具体而言，本文通过对基于轨道碳天文台-2（OCO-2）卫星观测数据库的XCO ₂进行处理，探索了美国本土XCO ₂的空间分布。研究发现，观测到的XCO ₂和插值数据可以代表CONUS县级XCO ₂的年空间变化。研究表明，工业区位和排放在 XCO ₂的空间变化中起主要作用在美国本土，无论其他人为来源（即交通、住宅）的直接排放以及县的城市和农村性质。研究发现，2017 年 263492 万吨 (MTons) 的工业排放使美国本土的 XCO ₂水平增加了0.0621 ppm。