Rossby Award 2008 Winner Thesis Abstract
The Municipal
Solid Waste Landfill as a Source of Montreal Protocol-restricted
Halocarbons in the United States and United Kingdom
by Elke Hodson
Abstract:
Central to the study of stratospheric ozone recovery and
climate change, is the ability to predict emissions of Montreal
Protocol-restricted halocarbons (MPGs) over the coming decades.
The prediction of emissions has become difficult as global
production of MPGs has rapidly declined establishing "banks"
(MPGs which have been produced but not yet released) as
the main emission sources. Both the magnitude and release
rate of global banks is quite uncertain. Very few field
studies have been conducted to provide estimates of global
bank emissions from individual sources within countries.
This thesis provides the first known observation-based estimates
of CFC-12, CFC-11,CFC-113, and CH3CCl3 emissions in the
United States (US) and United Kingdom (UK) from municipal
solid waste (MSW) landfills. With several hundred MSW landfills
in both the US and UK, estimating emissions of MPGs from
landfills required a targeted approach. Whole landfill mixing
ratios and flow rates were sampled monthly at one landfill
in southern Massachusetts to provide temporal coverage.
Spatial coverage was achieved through one time sampling
at seven landfills in Massachusetts and through data provided
by nine UK landfills for CFC-12 and CFC-11. Only actively
managed MSW landfills were sampled. US and UK MPG landfill
emissions were estimated and compared to recent observation-based
estimates of total US and UK MPG emissions to determine
the importance of the landfill source. US MPG landfill emissions
were estimated to be 0.008 - 0.08 Gg year-1. For all four
MPGs, US landfill emissions were 0.6% of total US emissions.
The UK landfill emission estimates were 6% and 0.8% of total
UK CFC-12 and CFC-11 emissions, respectively. All estimates
were accurate to within a factor of 2. This indicates that
landfills are not currently a significant source of lingering
MPG emissions in the US and UK. The implications are that
the majority of MPG emissions in industrialized countries
are likely coming from faster emitting sources.