A decline in emissions of CFC-11 and related chemicals from eastern China

Sunyoung Park, Luke M. Western (), Takuya Saito, Alison L. Redington, Stephan Henne, Xuekun Fang, Ronald G. Prinn (), Alistair J. Manning, Stephen A. Montzka, Paul J. Fraser, Anita L. Ganesan, Christina M. Harth, Jooil Kim, Paul B. Krummel, Qing Liang, Jens Mühle, Simon O’Doherty, Hyeri Park, Mi-Kyung Park, Stefan Reimann, Peter K. Salameh, Ray F. Weiss and Matthew Rigby ()
Additional contact information
Sunyoung Park: Kyungpook National University
Luke M. Western: University of Bristol
Takuya Saito: National Institute for Environmental Studies
Alison L. Redington: Hadley Centre, Met Office
Stephan Henne: Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology
Xuekun Fang: Zhejiang University
Ronald G. Prinn: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Alistair J. Manning: Hadley Centre, Met Office
Stephen A. Montzka: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Paul J. Fraser: CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere
Anita L. Ganesan: University of Bristol
Christina M. Harth: University of California San Diego
Jooil Kim: University of California San Diego
Paul B. Krummel: CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere
Qing Liang: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Jens Mühle: University of California San Diego
Simon O’Doherty: University of Bristol
Hyeri Park: Kyungpook National University
Mi-Kyung Park: Kyungpook National University
Stefan Reimann: Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology
Peter K. Salameh: University of California San Diego
Ray F. Weiss: University of California San Diego
Matthew Rigby: University of Bristol

Nature, 2021, vol. 590, issue 7846, 433-437

Abstract: Abstract Emissions of ozone-depleting substances, including trichlorofluoromethane (CFC-11), have decreased since the mid-1980s in response to the Montreal Protocol1,2. In recent years, an unexpected increase in CFC-11 emissions beginning in 2013 has been reported, with much of the global rise attributed to emissions from eastern China3,4. Here we use high-frequency atmospheric mole fraction observations from Gosan, South Korea and Hateruma, Japan, together with atmospheric chemical transport-model simulations, to investigate regional CFC-11 emissions from eastern China. We find that CFC-11 emissions returned to pre-2013 levels in 2019 (5.0 ± 1.0 gigagrams per year in 2019, compared to 7.2 ± 1.5 gigagrams per year for 2008–2012, ±1 standard deviation), decreasing by 10 ± 3 gigagrams per year since 2014–2017. Furthermore, we find that in this region, carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) and dichlorodifluoromethane (CFC-12) emissions—potentially associated with CFC-11 production—were higher than expected after 2013 and then declined one to two years before the CFC-11 emissions reduction. This suggests that CFC-11 production occurred in eastern China after the mandated global phase-out, and that there was a subsequent decline in production during 2017–2018. We estimate that the amount of the CFC-11 bank (the amount of CFC-11 produced, but not yet emitted) in eastern China is up to 112 gigagrams larger in 2019 compared to pre-2013 levels, probably as a result of recent production. Nevertheless, it seems that any substantial delay in ozone-layer recovery has been avoided, perhaps owing to timely reporting3,4 and subsequent action by industry and government in China5,6.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03277-w Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:590:y:2021:i:7846:d:10.1038_s41586-021-03277-w

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03277-w

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().