Global organic carbon emissions from primary sources from 1960 to 2009

- An OC emission inventory with 70 detailed source information was compiled.
- Newly published emission factors, especially those in developing countries, were taken into consideration.
- A new fuel-consumption data product (PKU-Fuel-2007) was used to reduce spatial bias of this inventory.
- Global OC emissions peaked around the year 1990 and future emission reduction is expected.
- Emission intensity and the OC/PM2.5 ratio for the primary emissions have decreased continuously.

In an attempt to reduce uncertainty, global organic carbon (OC) emissions from a total of 70 sources were compiled at 0.1° × 0.1° resolution for 2007 (PKU-OC-2007) and country scale from 1960 to 2009. The compilation took advantage of a new fuel-consumption data product (PKU-Fuel-2007) and a series of newly published emission factors (EFOC) in developing countries. The estimated OC emissions were 32.9 Tg (24.1-50.6 Tg as interquartile range), of which less than one third was anthropogenic in origin. Uncertainty resulted primarily from variations in EFOC. Asia, Africa, and South America had high emissions mainly because of residential biomass fuel burning or wildfires. Per-person OC emission in rural areas was three times that of urban areas because of the relatively high EFOC of residential solid fuels. Temporal trend of anthropogenic OC emissions depended on rural population, and was influenced primarily by residential crop residue and agricultural waste burning. Both the OC/PM2.5 ratio and emission intensity, defined as quantity of OC emissions per unit of fuel consumption for all sources, of anthropogenic OC followed a decreasing trend, indicating continuous improvement in combustion efficiency and control measures.

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