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FWF Project on Urban Methane Sources

Methane (CH4)  is an important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. The methane emission budget has a sizeable anthropogenic contribution, which makes methane the most important non-CO2 greenhouse gas released from anthropogenic activities. Methane emissions play a key role in hydroxyl consumption, thus contributing to complex interactions central to atmospheric chemistry and climate. Reduction of CH4 emissions can provide quick and cost effective cuts in global warming, but requires a sound understanding of the different anthropogenic sources. Although the total global CH4 budget is relatively well understood, the contributions of individual sources to CH4 emissions are poorly constrained. Anthropogenic methane emissions in Austria are largely based on Tier 1 bottom-up scaling and urban emission sources are subject to significant  uncertainty.  In collaboration with the JRC Ispra, we propose a holistic top-down approach to constrain methane emissions on the local to urban scale based on eddy flux observations of methane along with a suite of additional chemical markers.

IAO Flux Tower in Innsbruck

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COVID AQ Campaign

In addition to our long-term observations at the IAO, we have started extensive AQ measurements in response to the SARS-CoV2 outbreak and a complete lockdown of Western Austria. Austria was among the first European countries (after Italy) to impose an effective quarantine in March 2020. This will be a great dataset to compare with our 2019 campaign that was organized during the same season.