Estimation of space heating CO2 emissions based only on CO2 fluxes observations

Abstract

Heating buildings is a significant contributor to CO2 emissions in cities located at mid- and high-latitudes. This study aims to enhance our understanding of the average daily cycle and interseasonal variability of CO2 emissions from space heating. To achieve this goal, we have developed a methodology solely relying on observations to identify the contribution of space heating to CO2 fluxes measured in the urban inertial sublayer. This method offers two main advantages. Firstly, it allows for the estimation of space heating contribution with high frequency, facilitating the analysis of its daily cycle. Secondly, our estimation is independent of other methods that do not rely on observations, such as modeling or fuel-consumption based approaches.