Detection of the Yorkshire power stations from space: an air quality perspective

Abstract

Article:Pope, R orcid.org/0000-0002-3587-837X and Provod, M (2016) Detection of the Yorkshire power stations from space: an air quality perspective. Weather, 71 (2).

Widespread changes in UK air quality observed from space

“…London, Manchester and Birmingham represent large populous urban regions, while Drax is a large power station in Yorkshire. Pope and Provod () identified Drax, along with the nearby Eggborough and Ferrybridge C power stations, as the source of the North‐East Yorkshire TCNO 2 hotspot. In each of the regions, we see significant negative linear trends (blue lines, Figure ) over the 11‐year period in TCNO 2 ; London (−0.23 ± 0.05 × 10 15 molecules cm −2 year −1 ), Manchester (−0.12 ± 0.06 × 10 15 molecules cm −2 year −1 ), Drax (−0.22 ± 0.10 × 10 15 molecules cm −2 year −1 ) and Birmingham (−0.11 ± 0.05 × 10 15 molecules cm −2 year −1 ).…”

High resolution satellite observations give new view of UK air quality

“…Thus, the OMI long-term average concentrations are expected to be larger than those for TROPOMI in 2018. This is most evident over northeastern England, where a large signal from the Yorkshire power stations (Pope et al, 2016) is detected in the long-term OMI average (Figure 1(a)), but a strong decline in the emitted pollutants yields a less prominent TCNO 2 pattern in the recent TROPOMI data (Figure 1(b)). Other contributing factors to the OMI-TROPOMI offset are likely to be that satellite instruments measuring in the UV are prone to systematic differences/ calibration issues (Boersma et al, 2008;Irie et al, 2012), and that the two products use different algorithms to retrieve TCNO 2 .…”

Satellite Data Applications for Site-Specific Air Quality Regulation in the UK: Pilot Study and Prospects

“…One specific interest for the Environment Agency is the use of satellite air quality data to investigate industrial point source emissions. Few studies have focused on UK industrial point sources, and typically only large power stations such as Drax, the UK's largest NO 2 point source, are identified [38]. The majority of UK studies focus on combined source emissions over a large area, such as from large cities [22,25], or they investigate regional/national-scale changes [23,26].…”

“…Since these studies, wind direction and wind rotation analysis has become an widely used analysis technique. For example, they have been used on OMI NO 2 and SO 2 observations of power stations [10,38]; Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) and Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS) NH 3 observations of industrial point sources [42,43]; and TROPOMI NO 2 observations over a large power station in South Africa [8]. These techniques to increase the signal-to-noise ratio of point sources allow emission rates to be derived, and comparisons to be made between satellite-based estimates and "bottom up" inventories.…”

“…Aggregation by wind speed and direction was first applied to satellite data around a "point source" by Beirle et al [39], and has been notably used in the UK in the 2016 Pope et al [38] study of Yorkshire coal power stations. A similar procedure is used in this case study, in which observations are grouped into eight wind sectors, so that only observations within the same sector are averaged together.…”