2021 Global top-down VOC emissions based on TROPOMI formaldehyde and glyoxal data

Top-down global VOC emission distributions in 2021 (in 10^10 molecules cm-2 s-1) for (i) isoprene, (ii) anthropogenic VOC glyoxal precursors, (iii) anthropogenic VOC non-glyoxal precursors, (iv) biomass burning VOC, and (v) unspecified VOC glyoxal precursor.

The top-down emissions are inferred from an inverse modelling scheme built on the chemistry-transport model MAGRITTEv1.2 and its adjoint (Müller et al., 2019; Bauwens et al., 2016; Müller and Stavrakou, 2005), constrained by TROPOMI HCHO (De Smedt et al., 2018) and CHOCHO (Lerot et al., 2021) column data through a two-compound inversion framework.

The chemical mechanism of MAGRITTEv1.1 (Müller et al., 2019) already included the oxidation of six glyoxal precursors: isoprene (C5H8), acetylene (C2H2), and ethene (C2H4), and the common BTX aromatics benzene (C6H6), toluene (C7H8) and xylenes (C8H10). The new mechanism in MAGRITTEv1.2 includes the following additional aromatics: trimethylbenzene (C9H12), styrene (C8H8), ethylbenzene (C8H10), phenol (C6H6O), cresol (C7H8O), catechols (C6H6O2) and methylcatechols (C7H8O2), benzaldehyde (C7H6O), (methyl-) perbenzoic acid (C7H6O3), methylperoxybenzoylnitrate (C7H5O5N), nitrophenols and nitrocatechols (C6H5O3N), generic C4 and C5 intermediates (C4H4O2 and C5H6O2).

Global, monthly emissions are available in NetCDF format at a resolution of 2°x2.5°.

Data and Resources

Tags

Cite this as (APA format)

Sfendla, Y., Stavrakou, T., Müller , J.-F., & Opacka, B. (2025). 2021 Global top-down VOC emissions based on TROPOMI formaldehyde and glyoxal data (Version 1) [Data set]. Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy. https://doi.org/10.18758/52E4U9EN
Retrieved: 20:07 06 Feb 2026 (UTC)
Users of this DOI are kindly encouraged to contact the author(s) for help and cooperation towards further successful utilisation.

Author(s)
Principal

Sfendla, Yasmine, Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy
Other(s)

Stavrakou, Trissevgeniorcid, Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy; Müller , Jean-Françoisorcid, Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy; Opacka, Beata, Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy;
Contact data-contact of Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy

Technical info
Documentation

https://emissions.aeronomie.be/tropomi-based/global-voc-hcho-chocho

Temporal features
Starting

January 2021
Ending

December 2021
Temporal resolution

P1M

Additional info
Funding details

  • European Space Agency (ESA) through the GLANCE (Glyoxal Atmospheric sources revealed using novel column satellite observations and aircraft data, 2023) and the GLYRETRO (GLYoxal Retrievals from TROPOMI, 2019-2021) projects

  • EQUATOR project funded by the Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO) through the BRAIN-be 2.0 programme (grant no. B2/202/P1/EQUATOR, 2021–2025)
Repository homepage

https://data.aeronomie.be/dataset/
Last Updated

May 26, 2025
Created

May 22, 2025

Spatial features

Resolution (m): 2°x2.5°