Project

Research Plan

   Studies on GHG emissions from biomass burning and rice paddy in East-Asia using synergy of satellite data and ground based observations

Background and Objectives

   The anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases, particularly CO₂ and CH₄, is considered to have a serious impact on global warming (IPCC, 2007). CO₂ emissions from biomass burning is equivalent to roughly half from fossil fuels, and 13% of it is from Asia. Especially in East Asia, despite the large contribution of CO₂ from biomass burning such as swidden, peat fire, and forest fire, the quantity has not been estimated. Though 90% of the world's paddy fields, which is the source of CH₄, is distributed to East Asia, the characteristics of CH₄ emissions from paddy fields remain large uncertain. Thus, it is an important task to identify the characteristics of CO₂ and CH₄ emissions in East Asia. This research sets the targets to the three items below and implements the analysis study.

Objectives

1) To understand the characteristics of CO₂ emissions from biomass burning and CH₄ emissions from paddy fields in East Asia by the integrated analysis of satellite data and ground based observations data, and to construct higher-precision emission database, so that it will contribute to the progress of carbon cycling research in this area.

2) As a technical subject, to develop the method to estimate the lower troposphere concentration using by integrated utilization of each sensor which derives the vertical integrated quantity and the upper concentration.

3) While evaluating the method above by sonde, ground-based remote sensing and direct sampling, by integrated analysis of these data and satellite data, to construct the dataset which has spatial-temporal consistency.