Analysis of the Relationship between CO2 Emissions, OCO-2 XCO2 and SIF in the Korean Peninsula

Recently, in order to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, which is the main cause of global warming, Korea has declared carbon emission reduction targets and carbon neutral. Accurate assessment of regional emissions and atmospheric CO2 concentrations is becoming important as a result. In this study, we identified the spatiotemporal differences between satellite-based atmospheric CO2 concentration and CO2 emissions for the Korean Peninsula region using column-averaged CO2 dry-air mole fraction from the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 and emission inventory. And we explained these differences using solar-induced fluorescence (SIF), a photosynthetic reaction index according to vegetation growth. The Greenhouse Gas Inventory and Research Center (GIR) and Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) emissions continued to increase in Korea from 2014 to 2018, but the satellite-based atmospheric CO2 concentration decreased in 2018, respectively. Regionally, GIR and EDGAR emissions increased in 2018 in Gyeonggi-do and Chungcheongbuk-do, but satellite-based CO2 concentrations decreased for the corresponding years. In addition, the correlation analysis between emissions and satellite-based CO2 concentration showed a low correlation of 0.22 (GIR) and 0.16 (EDGAR) in Seoul and Gangwon-do. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations showed a different correlation with SIF by region. In the CO2-SIF correlation analysis for the growing season (May to September), Seoul and Gyeonggi-do showed a negative correlation coefficient of -0.26, Chungcheongbuk-do and Gangwon-do showed a positive correlation coefficient of 0.46. Therefore, it can be suggested that consideration of the CO2 absorption process is necessary for analyzing the relationship between the atmospheric CO2 concentration and emission inventory.