California Air Resources Board

Research Partners

In order to maximize the extent of the project and to better understand the statewide inventory, CARB is also collaborating with other researchers to expand the coverage of the GHG measurement network in California. Analytical and measurement collaborators include Megacities Carbon Project, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, University of San Diego, California Institute of Technology, and Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Los Angeles). Some of our key collaborators are shown in the figure below.

GHG Research Contracts

CARB also sponsors extramural research contracts and collaborations to answer critical GHG research and policy questions using the state-mandated Annual Research Program. Over the years, this effort has focused on a variety of source sectors including dairies, oil and gas, natural gas pipelines, waste sector, and many other subjects, and have important contribution to the state of science, ranging from studying sectoral emissions at the facility as well as process levels, to evaluating the inventory from both a top-down and bottom-up perspective. In addition, our collaborations with CEC, CalRecycle, CDFA, and other sister agencies have provided critical support both for planning, policy making, research, as well as for improving our understanding of the source sectors and mitigation. For instance, CARB has ongoing coordinated research efforts with the CEC to study the energy sector, and these have tremendously enhanced the measurement and evaluation of methane emission from the sector and improved the statewide emissions inventory. The following projects depict a subset of CARB-funded projects that focused on GHG monitoring, and either directly utilized the data generated by the research network or collected new monitoring data to study greenhouse gas emissions in California:

• ARCTAS-Mount Wilson GHG Monitoring “Proof of Concept” Gas Sampling and Analysis Service Contract (06-338) – Donald Blake (UCI)
• Determination of the spatial distribution of ozone precursor and greenhouse gas concentrations and emissions on the LA-Basin (09-318) - Jochen Stutz, Qinlin Li, Stan Sander (UCLA)
• Inverse modeling to verify California's greenhouse gas emission inventory (09-348) – Marc Fischer (CSU-East Bay)
• Synthesis of policy relevant findings from the Calnex 2010 field study (10-326) – David Parrish and Joost de Gouw (NOAA)
• Atmospheric measurement and inverse modeling to improve greenhouse gas emission estimates (11-306) – Marc Fischer (LBNL)
• Mount Wilson GHG Monitoring Gas Sampling and Analysis (13-320) – Donald Blake (UCI)
• Data Supporting GHG Emission Estimates in the South Coast Air Basin (13-329) – Yuk L. Yung (Caltech)
• Greenhouse gas measurements at Walnut Grove Tower (15-302) – Marc Fischer (UC Davis)

GHG Research Papers

• Papers from the CalNEX campaigns
• Hsu, Y.K., VanCuren, T., Park, S., Jakober, C., Herner, J., FitzGibbon, M., Blake, D.R. and Parrish, D.D., 2010. Methane emissions inventory verification in southern California. Atmospheric Environment, 44(1), pp.1-7
• Gorham, K.A., Blake, N.J., VanCuren, R.A., Fuelberg, H.E., Meinardi, S. and Blake, D.R., 2010. Seasonal and diurnal measurements of carbon monoxide and nonmethane hydrocarbons at Mt. Wilson, California: Indirect evidence of atomic Cl in the Los Angeles basin. Atmospheric Environment, 44(19), pp.2271-2279
• Wennberg, P.O., Mui, W., Wunch, D., Kort, E.A., Blake, D.R., Atlas, E.L., Santoni, G.W., Wofsy, S.C., Diskin, G.S., Jeong, S. and Fischer, M.L., 2012. On the sources of methane to the Los Angeles atmosphere. Environmental science & technology, 46(17), pp.9282-9289
• Jeong, S., Y.-K. Hsu, A. E. Andrews, L. Bianco, P. Vaca, J. M. Wilczak, and M. L. Fischer, 2013. A multitower measurement network estimate of California's methane emissions, J. Geophys. Res. Atmos., 118, doi
• Gallagher, G., Zhan, T., Hsu, Y.K., Gupta, P., Pederson, J., Croes, B., Blake, D.R., Barletta, B., Meinardi, S., Ashford, P. and Vetter, A., 2014. High-Global Warming Potential F-gas Emissions in California: Comparison of Ambient-Based versus Inventory-Based Emission Estimates, and Implications of Refined Estimates. Environmental science& technology, 48(2), pp.1084-1093
• Wong, K.W., Fu, D., Pongetti,T.J., Newman, S., Kort, E.A., Duren, R., Hsu, Y.K., Miller, C.E., Yung, Y.L. and Sander, S.P., 2015. Mapping CH 4: CO 2 ratios in Los Angeles with CLARS-FTS from Mount Wilson, California. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 15(1), pp.241-252
• Newman, S., Xu, X., Gurney, K.R., Hsu, Y. K., Li, K. F., Jiang, X., Keeling, R., Feng, S., O'Keefe, D., Patarasuk, R., Wong, K. W., Rao, P., Fischer, M. L., and Yung, Y. L.: Toward consistency between trends in bottom-up CO₂ emissions and top-down atmospheric measurements in the Los Angeles megacity, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 3843-3863, doi:10.5194/acp-16-3843-2016, 2016
• Kuwayama, T., Charrier-Klobas, J.G., Chen, Y., Vizenor, N.M., Blake, D.R., Pongetti, T., Conley, S.A., Sander, S.P., Croes, B., Herner, J.D.: Source Apportionment of Ambient Methane Enhancements in Los Angeles, California, To Evaluate Emission Inventory Estimates. Environmental Science & Technology 53, 2961-2970, 2019
• Cui, Y. Y., Vijayan A., Falk M., Hsu Y. K., Yin D., Chen X., Zhao Z., Avise J., Chen Y., Verhulst K., Duren R. M., Yadav V., Miller C. E., Weiss R. F., Keeling R., Kim J., Iraci L. T., Tanaka T., Johnson M. S., Kort E. A., Bianco L., FIscher M. L., Stroud K., Herner J., and Croes B.: A multiplatform inversion estimation of statewide and regional methane emissions in California during 2014-2016, Environmental Science & Technology 53, 9636-9645, 2019
• Duren, R.M., Thorpe, A.K., Foster, K.T., Rafiq, T., Hopkins, F.M., Yadav, V., Bue, B.D., Thompson, D.R., Conley, S., Colombi, N.K., Frankenberg, C., McCubbin, I.B., Eastwood, M.L., Falk, M., Herner, J.D., Croes, B.E., Green, R.O., Miller, C.E.: California’s methane super-emitters. Nature 575, 180-184, 2019