Challenges in Monitoring Atmospheric CO_2 Concentrations in Seoul Using Low-Cost Sensors

摘要

With the increasing importance of monitoring and verifying urban CO(2)concentrations to mitigate carbon emissions from cities, a high-resolution ground networks of low-cost CO(2)sensors are emerging that have a price advantage over existing high-cost sensors. This study develops a low-cost CO(2)instrument called the Seoul National University CO(2)Measurement (SNUCO2M) to monitor and analyze intra-city CO(2)concentrations over Seoul, Korea. The first step of establishing this low-cost CO(2)sensor network involved installing the SNUCO2M at the Yongsan Building (YSB; 113 m MASL) and Namsan Seoul Tower-High (NSTH; 385 m MASL) on October 18, 2018 and July 8, 2019, respectively. For comparison with the SNUCO2M, we utilized CO(2)concentrations measured by the Picarro instrument (high-cost CO(2)sensor) at Gwanak Mountain (GWA) background measurement site and the lower part of the NST (NSTL). The initial CO(2)measurements from the SNUCO2M, show that 1) the SNUCO2M has a 0.71% maximum error range and is sufficient to measure urban atmospheric CO(2)concentrations; and 2) the SNUCO2M captures 26.92 and 20.30 ppm of Seoul's summer and winter time CO(2)enhancement compared to the GWA background site. Our results suggest that the low-cost sensors such as SNUCO2M successfully detect urban CO(2)characteristics over the megacity and has great potential to replace high-cost sensors with cost and management limitations.