Summary/Abstract
The concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in Earth’s atmosphere is increasing due to human activities and the resulting effects on the global climate system have initiated several policy-driven approaches to reduce emissions of this greenhouse gas. Quantifying the effectiveness of such policies requires both bottom-up and top-down approaches to estimate CO2 emissions. This article investigates the amount of CO2 emitted within the Los Angeles Basin between January 2020 and December 2021 using NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-3. The authors then use the observed CO2 to assess contributions from specific sectors (on-road transportation, industrial sources, commercial maritime activity, etc.). The authors’ results demonstrate that urban CO2 emissions observed from space-based instrumentation can be disaggregated to several socioeconomic sectors to study trends that may be present in each one. Notable detected features include the sudden reduction of on-road CO2 emissions due to the COVID-19 lockdown period and the steady increase in off-shore emissions due to ship idling and delays.