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Spatial Distribution of the Annual Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide in the Contiguous USA and Their Controlling Factors

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Abstract

Analyzing the geographical distribution of carbon dioxide (CO2) is essential for understanding the influence and structural nature of area-specific sectoral emissions in the total carbon budget. In this practice, the implementations of specific accounting and spatial attribution methods are criticized for multiple sources of uncertainties. Therefore, estimated emissions may bring forth unreliable conclusions to analyze and understand the spatial variation and associated hypothesized anthropogenic sources in this gas’ biophysical cyclical process. This paper examined the relations among the observed atmospheric phenomenon of column-averaged CO2 (XCO2) and the hypothesized major anthropogenic emissions and sources to understand their influences on the spatial variation of annual XCO2 concentration at the county-level contiguous USA (CONUS). Specifically, this paper explored the spatial distribution of XCO2 in the CONUS by processing the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) satellite-based observed database of XCO2. The study found that observed XCO2 and interpolated data can represent the annual spatial variation of XCO2 at the county level of CONUS. The study established that industrial locations and emissions play a major role in the spatial variation of XCO2 in the CONUS regardless of the direct emissions from other anthropogenic sources (i.e., transport, residential) and the urban and rural nature of the counties. The study found that in 2017, 2634.92 Million Tons (MTons) industrial emissions increased the level of XCO2 by 0.0621 ppm in the CONUS.

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Data Availability

The raw databases are available on different organizational websites. The available datasets’ web links are provided in the manuscript. The datasets generated and analyzed for this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The study was conducted on several secondary databases. Therefore, we are grateful to the organizations and anonymous persons who have made the databases open and available to the people. Specifically, we would like to extend our heartiest gratitude to The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), and US Bureau of Census for their accessible online platforms of databases. Finally, we would like to thank the anonymous reviewers, editor-in-chief, and advisory editors for their scholarly suggestions and editorial corrections.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography and Planning, University of Toledo, Toledo, OH, 43606, USA

    Muhammad Salaha Uddin & Oleg Smirnov

  2. Department of Urban & Regional Planning, Khulna University of Engineering & Technology, Khulna, Bangladesh

    Muhammad Salaha Uddin

  3. Department of Economics, University of Toledo, Toledo, OH, 43606, USA

    Oleg Smirnov

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  1. Muhammad Salaha Uddin
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Contributions

Muhammad Salaha Uddin: conceptualization, methodology, software, formal analysis, data curation, writing the original draft, writing review and editing, visualization. Oleg Smirnov: methodology, formal analysis, supervision.

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Correspondence to Muhammad Salaha Uddin.

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Uddin, M.S., Smirnov, O. Spatial Distribution of the Annual Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide in the Contiguous USA and Their Controlling Factors. Environ Model Assess 27, 57–76 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10666-021-09780-8

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