A Novel Method to Identify the Global Sources and Sinks of Carbon Dioxide Based on Spatial Analysis

Abstract

Today global warming has become one of the most important concerns of environmental science. The redundancy of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is known as a major factor in this phenomenon. These gases contain water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone. The CO 2 gas is one of their most effective among these gases. According to scientific warnings, the amount of CO 2 gases in the atmosphere has increased by 40% to 45% over the last 50 years. Reducing the abundant gas in the atmosphere requires a good knowledge of related factors involved, including sources that emit gases into the atmosphere and sinks that absorb the gas from the atmosphere. The amount of CO 2 gas in the atmosphere has been accurately measured in previous years with great certainty. But the predicted values of emissions from sources and removals by sinks have large ambiguities. As studies show, even the computed residuals trends (which is obtained by subtracting the amounts of sinks from sources) strongly disagree with the trends of the existence of CO 2 in the atmosphere. This study as a preliminary review, proposes a method to identify the locations of sources and sinks of carbon dioxide using global statistical information and adding spatial analysis approaches. By applying this method to the data observed from 2000 to 2011 and the extraction of likely sources and sinks, the region of the Black Sea, near Romania recognized as one of the strong points issued and Bukit Kototabang near Indonesia acknowledged as an Impressive CO 2 absorption zone.