Satellite observations of recent power plant construction in Inner Mongolia, China

摘要

About 50% of the increase in China's NO, emissions since 2000 can be attributed to the construction of new power plants. We show that the newly added NO_x emissions from new power plants in Inner Mongolia, China, were detected by the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) aboard NASA's Aura satellite. Increase rates of NO_2 columns from OMI and NO_x emissions from inventories are even in quantitative agreement in cases where new facilities are added to already-developed regions. This study confirms that the OMI products are quite capable of identifying the construction of large new emitting facilities through detection of their NO_x emissions.