Abstract
An uncertainty assessment of the Austrian greenhouse gas inventory provided the basis for this analysis. We isolated the factors that were responsible for the uncertainty observed, and compared our results with those of other countries. Uncertainties of input parameters were used to derive the uncertainty of the emission estimate. Resulting uncertainty using a Monte Carlo approach was 5.2% for the emission levels of 2005 and 2.4 percentage points for the 1990–2005 emission trend. Systematic uncertainty was not assessed. This result is in the range expected from previous experience in Austria and other countries. The determining factor for the emission level uncertainty (not the trend uncertainty) is the uncertainty associated with soil nitrous oxide N2O emissions. Uncertainty of the soil N2O release rate is huge, and there is no agreement even on the magnitude of the uncertainty when country comparisons are made. In other words, reporting and use of N2O release uncertainty are also different between countries; this is important, as this single factor fully determines a country’s national greenhouse gas inventory uncertainty. Inter-country comparisons of emission uncertainty are thus unable to reveal much about a country’s inventory quality. For Austria, we also compared the results of the Monte Carlo approach to those obtained from a simpler error propagation approach, and find the latter to systematically provide lower uncertainty. The difference can be explained by the ability of the Monte Carlo approach to account for statistical dependency of input parameters, again regarding soil N2O emissions. This is in contrast to the results of other countries, which focus less on statistical dependency when performing Monte Carlo analysis. In addition, the error propagation results depend on treatment of skewed probability distributions, which need to be translated into normal distributions. The result indicates that more attention needs to be given to identifying statistically dependent input data in uncertainty assessment.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Baggott SL, Brown L, Milne R et al (2005) UK greenhouse gas inventory 1990 to 2003. Annual report for submission under the Framework Convention on Climate Change. AEA Technology, Didcot
Baggott SL, Cardenas L, Garnett E et al (2007) UK greenhouse gas inventory 1990 to 2005. Annual report for submission under the Framework Convention on Climate Change, Report AEAT/ENV/R/2429. AEA Technology, Didcot
Charles D, Jones BMR, Salway AG et al (1998) Treatment of uncertainties for national estimates of greenhouse gas emissions, AEAT-2688-1. AEA Technology, Culham
IPCC (2000) Good practice guidance and uncertainty management in national greenhouse gas inventories. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, National Greenhouse Gas Inventories Programme, Hayama
IPCC (2006) 2006 IPCC guidelines for national greenhouse gas inventories. In: Eggleston HS, Buendia L, Miwa K, Ngara T, Tanabe K (eds) IGES, Hayama (prepared by the National Greenhouse Gas Inventories Programme)
Leip A (2010) Quantitative quality assessment of the greenhouse gas inventory for agriculture in Europe. Clim Change. doi:10.1007/s10584-010-9915-5
Lieberman D, Jonas M, Winiwarter W et al (2007) Accounting for climate change: introduction. Water Air Soil Pollut Focus 7:421–424
MNP (2006) Greenhouse gas emissions in the Netherlands 1990–2004. National Inventory Report 2006, MNP report 500080 001. Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (MNP), Bilthoven
Monni S, Syri S, Savolainen I (2004) Uncertainties in the Finnish greenhouse gas emission inventory. Environ Sci Policy 7(2):87–98
Nahorski Z, Horabik J (2010) Compliance and emission trading rules for nonsymmetric emission uncertainty estimates. Clim Change. doi:10.1007/s10584-010-9916-4
Orthofer R (1991) Abschätzung der Methan-Emissionen in Österreich, report OEFZS-4586. Forschungszentrum Seibersdorf, Seibersdorf
Ramirez A, de Keizer C, van der Sluijs JP et al (2008) Monte Carlo analysis of uncertainties in the Netherlands greenhouse gas emission inventory for 1990–2004. Atmos Environ 42:8263–8272
Rypdal K, Winiwarter W (2001) Uncertainties in greenhouse gas inventories—evaluation, comparability and implications. Environ Sci Policy 4:107–116
Statistics Finland (2007) Greenhouse gas emissions in Finland 1990–2005. National Inventory Report to the UNFCCC. Statistics Finland, Helsinki
Theloke J, Pfeiffer H, Pregger T et al (2007) Development of a methodology for temporal and spatial resolution of greenhouse gas emission inventories for validation. In: Proceedings of the 2nd international workshop on uncertainty in greenhouse gas inventories, 27–28 September 2007. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria, pp 203–208
Umweltbundesamt (2007) Austria’s National Inventory Report 2007, submission under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Report REP-0084, Umweltbundesamt, Vienna, Austria
US EPA (2007) Inventory of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and sinks: 1990–2005. USEPA #430-R-07-002. US Environmental Protection Agency, Washington
Winiwarter W (2007) National greenhouse gas inventories: understanding uncertainties vs. potential for improving reliability. Water Air Soil Pollut Focus 7:443–450
Winiwarter W (2008) Quantifying uncertainties of the Austrian Greenhouse Gas Inventory. Report ARC-sys-0154. Austrian Research Centers GmbH-ARC, Vienna. Available at http://systemsresearch.ac.at/FTP/winiwarter/papers/ARC_sys_0154.pdf. Accessed 9 November 2009
Winiwarter W, Köther T (2008) Uncertainty related to Luxembourg’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory. Report ARC-sys-0162. Austrian Research Centers GmbH-ARC, Vienna. Available at http://systemsresearch.ac.at/FTP/winiwarter/papers/ARC_sys_0162.pdf Accessed 9 November 2009
Winiwarter W, Orthofer R (2000) Unsicherheit der Emissionsinventur für Treibhausgase in Österreich. Seibersdorf Research Report OEFZS-S-0072, Österreichisches Forschungszentrum Seibersdorf GmbH, Seibersdorf (Austria). Available at http://systemsresearch.ac.at/FTP/winiwarter/papers/arcs0072.pdf. Accessed 9 November 2009
Winiwarter W, Rypdal K (2001) Assessing the uncertainty associated with national greenhouse gas emission inventories: a case study for Austria. Atmos Environ 35:5425–5440
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Winiwarter, W., Muik, B. Statistical dependence in input data of national greenhouse gas inventories: effects on the overall inventory uncertainty. Climatic Change 103, 19–36 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-010-9921-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-010-9921-7