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Determination of the uncertainties of the German emission inventories for particulate matter and aerosol precursors using Monte-Carlo analysis

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Uncertainties in Greenhouse Gas Inventories

Abstract

This paper presents the application of a Monte-Carlo simulation for assessing the uncertainties of German 2005 emissions of particulate matter (PM10 & PM2.5) and aerosol precursors (SO2, NOx, NH3 and NMVOC) carried out in the PAREST (PArticle REduction STrategies) research project. For the uncertainty analysis the German Federal Environment Agency’s emission inventory was amended and integrated with a model on the disaggregation of energy balance data. A series of algorithms was developed in order to make efficient and pragmatic use of available literature and expert judgement data for uncertainties of emission model input data. The inventories for PM10 (95 %-confidence interval: −16 %/+ 23 %), PM2.5 (−15 %/+19 %) and NOx (−10 %/+23 %) appear most uncertain, while the inventories for SO2 (−9 %/+9 %), NMVOC (−10 %/+12 %) and NH3 (−13 %/+13 %) show a higher accuracy. The source categories adding the most relevant contributions to overall uncertainty vary across the pollutants and comprise agriculture, mobile machinery in agriculture and forestry, construction sites, small businesses/carpentries, cigarette smoke and fireworks, road traffic, solvent use and stationary combustion. The PAREST results on relative uncertainties have been quoted in the German Informative Inventory Reports since 2012. A comparison shows that the PAREST results for Germany are within the range of (for NH3: close below) other European countries’ results on air pollutant inventory uncertainties as reported in the 2013 Informative Inventory Reports.

This article is part of a Special Issue on “Third International Workshop on Uncertainty in Greenhouse Gas Inventories” edited by Jean Ometto and Rostyslav Bun.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Energy & Climate, Oeko-Institut e.V., Schicklerstr. 5-7, 10179, Berlin, Germany

    Wolfram Joerss

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  1. Wolfram Joerss
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Correspondence to Wolfram Joerss .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Earth System Science Center, National Institute for Space Research, São José dos Campos, São Paulo, Brazil

    Jean P. Ometto

  2. Department of Applied Mathematics, Lviv Polytechnic National University, Lviv, Ukraine

    Rostyslav Bun

  3. Advanced Systems Analysis, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenbourg, Austria

    Matthias Jonas

  4. Systems Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warszawa, Poland

    Zbigniew Nahorski

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Joerss, W. (2015). Determination of the uncertainties of the German emission inventories for particulate matter and aerosol precursors using Monte-Carlo analysis. In: Ometto, J., Bun, R., Jonas, M., Nahorski, Z. (eds) Uncertainties in Greenhouse Gas Inventories. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15901-0_11

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