Inverse estimation of NOx emissions over China and India 2005–2016: contrasting recent trends and future perspectives

Bottom-up emission inventories can provide valuable information for understanding emission status and are needed as input datasets to drive chemical transport models. However, this type of inventory has the disadvantage of taking several years to be compiled because it relies on a statistical dataset. Top-down approaches use satellite data as a constraint and overcome this disadvantage. We have developed an immediate inversion system to estimate anthropogenic NO _x emissions with NO _2 column density constrained by satellite observations. The proposed method allows quick emission updates and considers model and observation errors by applying linear unbiased optimum estimations. We used this inversion system to estimate the variation of anthropogenic NO _x emissions from China and India from 2005 to 2016. On the one hand, NO _x emissions from China increased, reaching a peak in 2011 with 29.5 Tg yr ^−1 , and subsequently decreased to 25.2 Tg yr ^−1 in 2016. On the other hand, NO _x emissions from India showed a continuous increase from 2005 to 2016, reaching 13.9 Tg yr ^−1 in 2016. These opposing trends from 2011 to 2016 were −0.83 and +0.76 Tg yr ^−1 over China and India, respectively, and correspond to strictly regulated and unregulated future scenarios. Assuming these trends continue after 2016, we expect NO _x emissions from China and India will be similar in 2023, with India becoming the world’s largest NO _x emissions source in 2024

Preference for fish in a Neolithic hunter-gatherer community of the upper Tigris, elucidated by amino acid δ15N analysis

status: publishe

Multiple lines of evidence of early goose domestication in a 7,000-y-old rice cultivation village in the lower Yangtze River, China

Poultry are farmed globally, with chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) being the leading domesticated species. Although domestic chicken bones have been reported from some Early Holocene sites, their origin is controversial and there is no reliable domestic chicken bone older than the Middle Holocene. Here, we studied goose bones from Tianluoshan-a 7,000-y-old rice cultivation village in the lower Yangtze River valley, China-using histological, geochemical, biochemical, and morphological approaches. Histological analysis revealed that one of the bones was derived from a locally bred chick, although no wild goose species breed in southern China. The analysis of oxygen-stable isotope composition supported this observation and further revealed that some of the mature bones were also derived from locally bred individuals. The nitrogen-stable isotope composition showed that locally bred mature birds fed on foods different from those eaten by migrant individuals. Morphological analysis revealed that the locally bred mature birds were homogenous in size, whereas radiocarbon dating clearly demonstrated that the samples from locally bred individuals were similar to 7,000 y old. The histological, geochemical, biochemical, morphological, and contextual evidence suggest that geese at Tianluoshan village were at an early stage of domestication. The goose population appears to have been maintained for several generations without the introduction of individuals from other populations and may have been fed cultivated paddy rice. These findings indicate that goose domestication dates back 7,000 y, making geese the oldest domesticated poultry species in history

The impact of the transition from broad-spectrum hunting to sheep herding on human meat consumption: Multi-isotopic analyses of human bone collagen at Asikli Hoyuk, Turkey

At Asikli Hoyuk, one of the earliest Pre-pottery Neolithic mound sites in Central Anatolia, a shift in animal utilization from broad-spectrum exploitation of diverse animal species to a concentration on managed caprines has been observed. Changes in the balance of meat to plant foods over the same time frame remain an open question. In this study, carbon and nitrogen isotopic analyses of bulk collagen and compound-specific nitrogen isotopic analysis of amino acids were undertaken for the human remains to elucidate the dietary impact of the hunting to herding transition over a span of about 1000 years. The results showed that animal protein consumption did not change very much as managed sheep became the main source of meat. The contribution of animal protein to the total human diet at Asikli Hoyuk is similar to comparison data on later Neolithic farmers in Anatolia measured in previous studies. The early development of ungulate management and the increasing focus on just a few prey species do not appear to have forced drastic changes in the extent human carnivory from the early Pre-pottery Neolithic to the early Pottery Neolithic. However, human individuals showed similar isotopic compositions within the same buildings at Asikli, suggesting variation in food consumption by household