Purpose

"Climate sensitivity" is often determined by comparing the record of climate forcing (radiative perturbation) with observed temperature response. This means that we need a history of all species that affect climate. Our contribution to this endeavor is an estimate of black and organic carbon emissions from energy-related combustion since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Because people largely relied on biofuel in early industrial days, we also had to estimate a history of biofuel consumption.

These data represent emissions from fossil fuel and biofuel combustion only, and do not include open vegetative burning (e.g. forests), which is very important!

Data given here are presently SPEW Version 5.6.

Data summaries

By hemisphere (csv); By IMAGE region (csv)

1x1 Gridded Data

Data are in csv files (700 kB each), or skip to the end and download everything at once (quicker!). Netcdf files that can be used as input to the Community Climate System Model are available on NCAR's mass store (contact me for location). Gridded data have some slight mismatches (<2% of total) relating to change in country boundaries. Thus, they do not match inventory totals perfectly.

Citations

Bond, T.C., E. Bhardwaj, R. Dong, R. Jogani, S. Jung, C. Roden, D.G. Streets, S. Fernandes, and N. Trautmann, Historical emissions of black and organic carbon aerosol from energy-related combustion, 1850-2000. Global Biogeochemical Cycles 21: GB2018, doi:10.1029/2006GB002840, 2007.

Fernandes, S.M., N.M. Trautmann, D.G. Streets, C.A. Roden, and T.C. Bond, Global biofuel use, 1850-2000. Global Biogeochemical Cycles 21: GB2019, doi:10.1029/2006GB002836, 2007.  

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