A Distributed Approach to Accounting for Carbon in Wood Product

With an evolving political environment of commitments to limit emissions of greenhouse gases, and of markets to trade in emissions permits, there is growing scientific, political, and economic need to accurately evaluate carbon (C) stocks and flows—especially those related to human activities. One component of the global carbon cycle that has been contentious is the stock of carbon that is physically held in harvested wood products. The carbon stored in wood products has been sometimes overlooked, but the amount of carbon contained in wood products is not trivial, it is increasing with time, and it is significant to some Parties. This paper is concerned with accurate treatment of harvested wood products in inventories of CO2 emissions to the atmosphere. The methodologies outlined demonstrate a flexible way to expand current methods beyond the assumption of a simple, first-order decay to include the use of more accurate and detailed data while retaining the simplicity of simple formulas. The paper demonstrates that a more accurate representation of decay time can have significant economic implications in a system where emissions are taxed or emissions permits are traded. The method can be easily applied using only data on annual production of wood products and two parameters to characterize their expected lifetime. These methods are not specific to wood products but can be applied to long-lived, carbon-containing products from sources other than wood, e.g. long-lived petrochemical products. A single unifying approach that is both simple and flexible has the potential to be both more accurate in its results, more efficient in its implementation, and economically important to some Parties

Managing the Cost of Emissions for Durable, Carbon-Containing Products

We recognize that carbon-containing products do not decay and release CO2 to the atmosphere instantaneously, but release that carbon over extended periods of time. For an initial production of a stock of carbon-containing product, we can treat the release as a probability distribution covering the time over which that release occurs. The probability distribution that models the carbon release predicts the amount of carbon that is released as a function of time. The use of a probability distribution in accounting for the release of carbon to the atmosphere realizes a fundamental shift from the idea that all carbon-containing products contribute to a single pool that decays in proportion to the size of the stock. Viewing the release of carbon as a continuous probabilistic process introduces some theoretical opportunities not available in the former paradigm by taking advantage of other fields where the use of probability distributions has been prevalent for many decades. In particular, theories developed in the life insurance industry can guide the development of pricing and payment structures for dealing with the costs associated with the oxidation and release of carbon. These costs can arise from a number of proposed policies (cap and trade, carbon tax, social cost of carbon, etc), but in the end they all result in there being a cost to releasing carbon to the atmosphere. If there is a cost to the emitter for CO2 emissions, payment for that cost will depend on both when the emissions actually occur and how payment is made. Here we outline some of the pricing and payment structures that are possible which result from analogous theories in the life insurance industry. This development not only provides useful constructs for valuing sequestered carbon, but highlights additional motivations for employing a probability distribution approach to unify accounting methodologies for stocks of carbon containing products

Valuing Uncertainty Part II: The Impact of Risk Charges in Dealing with Time Issues in Lifecycle Analysis and GHG Accounting

We have greater certainty for what has happened in the past than for what will happen in the future. Uncertainty on the impact and value of emissions can be very large. Given all of the elements of uncertainty, we are challenged to set global targets for limiting the environmental impact of emissions, to distribute those targets among the many parties responsible for emissions, to evaluate the trajectories toward targets, to understand the risk involved in not meeting targets, to motivate the collective efforts and burden sharing or trading, and to verify that targets have been achieved. We need a clear and consistent framework for dealing with uncertainty and in this article we use the notion of a risk charge on uncertainty to investigate issues of time in GHG and lifecycle analysis accounting. Results: We address critical issues of short-term storage, time horizons, permanence, trading agreements and model error, and explain the consequences of a risk charge on the associated uncertainties. Conclusions: We demonstrate here how the framework we have built naturally extends to address most types of issues that might arise in placing a value on the uncertainty of GHG emissions, and in quantifying management trade-offs and policy strategies for mitigation and adaptation of climate change

Uncertainty in Gridded CO2 Emissions Estimates

We are interested in the spatial distribution of fossil-fuel-related emissions of CO2 for both geochemical and geopolitical reasons, but it is important to understand the uncertainty that exists in spatially explicit emissions estimates. Working from one of the widely used gridded data sets of CO2 emissions, we examine the elements of uncertainty, focusing on gridded data for the United States at the scale of 1’ latitude by 1’ longitude. Uncertainty is introduced in the magnitude of total United States emissions, the magnitude and location of large point sources, the magnitude and distribution of non-point sources, and from the use of proxy data to characterize emissions. For the United States, we develop estimates of the contribution of each component of uncertainty. At 1 resolution, in most grid cells, the largest contribution to uncertainty comes from how well the distribution of the proxy (in this case population density) represents the distribution of emissions. In other grid cells, the magnitude and location of large point sources make the major contribution to uncertainty. Uncertainty in population density can be important where a large gradient in population density occurs near a grid cell boundary. Uncertainty is strongly scale-dependent with uncertainty increasing as grid size decreases. Uncertainty for our data set with 1 grid cells for the United States is typically on the order of ±150%, but this is perhaps not excessive in a data set where emissions per grid cell vary over 8 orders of magnitude

The role of CO2 emissions from large point sources in emissions totals, responsibility, and policy

A large fraction of anthropogenic CO2 emissions comes from large point sources such as power plants, petroleum refineries, and large industrial facilities. The existence and locations of these facilities depend on a variety of factors that include the distribution of natural resources and the economy of scale of operating large facilities. These large facilities provide goods and/or services well beyond the political jurisdiction in which they reside and their emissions to the global atmosphere are not a simple reflection of the consumption of goods and services within the geographic region in which they reside. And yet many accounting schemes do not distinguish between emissions for local consumption and emissions for export. Looking at the geographic distribution of large point sources of CO2 emissions in theU.S. suggests that per capita emissions from a geographic area are not necessarily a good indication of the mitigation responsibility of the residents. The design of effective and fair mitigation strategies needs to consider that emissions embodied in the products of large facilities, such as electric power and refined petroleum products, are often transferred across accounting boundaries; e.g. the CO2 emissions occur in one jurisdiction even though the electricity is used in another. We close with a short discussion of how two sub-national emissions trading schemes in the U.S. have confronted the issue of embodied emissions crossing their jurisdictional boundaries

Current systematic carbon-cycle observations and the need for implementing a policy-relevant carbon observing system

A globally integrated carbon observation and anal-ysis system is needed to improve the fundamental under-standing of the global carbon cycle, to improve our ability to project future changes, and to verify the effectiveness of poli-cies aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase carbon sequestration. Building an integrated carbon obser-vation system requires transformational advances from the existing sparse, exploratory framework towards a dense, ro-bust, and sustained system in all components: anthropogenic emissions, the atmosphere, the ocean, and the terrestrial bio-sphere. The paper is addressed to scientists, policymakers, and funding agencies who need to have a global picture of the current state of the (diverse) carbon observations. We identify the current state of carbon observations, and the needs and notional requirements for a global integrated carbon observa-tion system that can be built in the next decade. A key conclu-sion is the substantial expansion of the ground-based obser-vation networks required to reach the high spatial resolution for CO2 and CH4 ?uxes, and for carbon stocks for address-ing policy-relevant objectives, and attributing ?ux changes to underlying processes in each region. In order to establish ?ux and stock diagnostics over areas such as the southern oceans, tropical forests, and the Arctic, in situ observations will have to be complemented with remote-sensing measure-ments. Remote sensing offers the advantage of dense spatial coverage and frequent revisit. A key challenge is to bring remote-sensing measurements to a level of long-term consis-tency and accuracy so that they can be ef?ciently combined in models to reduce uncertainties, in synergy with ground-based data. Bringing tight observational constraints on fossil fuel and land use change emissions will be the biggest chal-lenge for deployment of a policy-relevant integrated carbon observation system. This will require in situ and remotely sensed data at much higher resolution and density than currently achieved for natural ?uxes, although over a small land area (cities, industrial sites, power plants), as well as the in-clusion of fossil fuel CO2 proxy measurements such as ra-diocarbon in CO2 and carbon-fuel combustion tracers. Addi-tionally, a policy-relevant carbon monitoring system should also provide mechanisms for reconciling regional top-down (atmosphere-based) and bottom-up (surface-based) ?ux esti-mates across the range of spatial and temporal scales rele-vant to mitigation policies. In addition, uncertainties for each observation data-stream should be assessed. The success of the system will rely on long-term commitments to monitor-ing, on improved international collaboration to ?ll gaps in the current observations, on sustained efforts to improve access to the different data streams and make databases interopera-ble, and on the calibration of each component of the system to agreed-upon international scales

Carbon Accounting: Issues of Scale

No abstract Availabl

Valuing uncertainty part I: the impact of uncertainty in GHG accounting

Abstract: Background: It has become increasingly evident in the literature that a correlation needs to be made between uncertainty in GHG emissions estimates and the value of emissions. That is, emissions with larger uncertainty are less desirable than those with smaller uncertainty. In fact, concrete advances in trade and reduction agreements depend on finding a set of methodologies for dealing with uncertainty that is acceptable to all parties. Results: Here, we assume that a cost, or value, can be assigned to changes in GHG emissions. As this cost can be assigned to emissions (or sequestrations), then so must a cost be assigned to the associated uncertainty. Standard methods from the actuarial sciences provide an approach to this valuation and we apply these same ideas to dealing to GHG accounting. Conclusion: This framework will allow us to address issues related to agreement structures and motivations for reducing uncertainty, and will enable objective comparisons between options

Global carbon budget 2013

Accurate assessment of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and their redistribution among the atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial biosphere is important to better understand the global carbon cycle, support the development of climate policies, and project future climate change. Here we describe datasets and a methodology to quantify all major components of the global carbon budget, including their uncertainties, based on the combination of a range of data, algorithms, statistics and model estimates and their interpretation by a broad scientific community. We discuss changes compared to previous estimates consistency within and among components, alongside methodology and data limitations. CO2 emissions from fossil-fuel combustion and cement production (EFF) are based on energy statistics, while emissions from Land-Use Change (ELUC), including deforestation, are based on combined evidence from land-cover change data, fire activity in regions undergoing deforestation, and models. The global atmospheric CO2 concentration is measured directly and its rate of growth (GATM) is computed from the annual changes in concentration. The mean ocean CO2 sink (SOCEAN) is based on observations from the 1990s, while the annual anomalies and trends are estimated with ocean models. The variability in SOCEAN is evaluated for the first time in this budget with data products based on surveys of ocean CO2 measurements. The global residual terrestrial CO2 sink (SLAND) is estimated by the difference of the other terms of the global carbon budget and compared to results of Dynamic Global Vegetation Models. All uncertainties are reported as ±1 sigma, reflecting the current capacity to characterise the annual estimates of each component of the global carbon budget. For the last decade available (2003-2012), EFF was 8.6 ± 0.4 GtCyr-1, ELUC 0.8 ± 0.5 GtCyr-1, GATM 4.3 ± 0.1 GtCyr-1, SOCEAN 2.6 ± 0.5 GtCyr-1, and SLAND 2.6 ± 0.8 GtCyr-1. For year 2012 alone, EFF grew to 9.7 ± 0.5 GtCyr-1, 2.2% above 2011, reflecting a continued trend in these emissions; GATM was 5.2 ± 0.2 GtCyr-1, SOCEAN was 2.9 ±0.5 GtCyr-1, and assuming and ELUC of 0.9± 0.5 GtCyr-1 (based on 2001-2010 average), SLAND&gt; was 2.5±0.9 GtCyr-1. GATM was high in 2012 compared to the 2003-2012 average, almost entirely reflecting the high EFF. The global atmospheric CO2 concentration reached 392.52±0.10 ppm on average over 2012. We estimate that EFF will increase by 2.1 % (1.1-3.1 %) to 9.9 ± 0.5 GtC in 2013, 61% above emissions in 1990, based on projections of World Gross Domestic Product and recent changes in the carbon intensity of the economy. With this projection, cumulative emissions of CO2 will reach about 550 ± 60 GtC for 1870-2013, 70% from EFF (390 ± 20 GtC) and 30 % from ELUC (160 ± 55 GtC). This paper is intended to provide a baseline to keep track of annual carbon budgets in the future. All data presented here can be downloaded from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (doi:10.3334/CDIAC/GCP_2013_v1.1). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]]]> 2014 English http://libres.uncg.edu/ir/asu/f/Marland_Gregg_2014_Global_Carbon_Budget.pdf oai:libres.uncg.edu/17974 2015-05-29T11:14:24Z UNCP Analysis of Frog Calling Patterns in and adjacent to the Lumber River Ebaugh, Lindsey C. NC DOCKS at The University of North Carolina at Pembroke <![CDATA[In this study, I surveyed five sites for frog calls from March 16th - April 14th. I surveyed five sites located in western Robeson County, North Carolina. The purpose of my study was to determine the frog species calling at each of the five sites, patterns of call intensity for each species, and to relate these patterns to environmental parameters such as weather, disturbance and habitat type. Amphibians are sensitive to their environment, and because of this, I found that the sites with the least human disturbance exhibited higher frog species abundance while the sites with more human disturbance exhibited lower frog species abundance. Three possible factors explain my results. A change in weather during the survey likely affected the patterns seen in frog calling at each site. Also, the time of year affected what species were calling at each site based on the calling preference of individual species. Lastly, variation in habitat and disturbance at sites helped explain my results. Further research should be conducted in order to look at the full yearly pattern of frog calling in the area, and to determine if frog populations are increasing, decreasing, or remaining the same

Uncertainty in projecting GHG emissions from bioenergy

The authors discuss the importance of the definition of a constant reference baseline in predicting the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from bioenergy systems. They think that the baseline choice plays an important role in the assessment of GHG emissions trends and development of GHG emission frameworks. They believe that comprehensiveness and conservativeness should be considered when developing a planning framework