Interpreting plant-sampled ¿14CO2 to study regional anthropogenic CO2 signals in Europe

"Interpreting plant-sampled Δ14CO2 to study regional anthropogenic CO2 signals in Europe"

Author:  Denica Bozhinova

This thesis investigates the quantitative interpretation of plant-sampled ∆14CO2 as an indicator of fossil fuel CO2 recently added to the atmosphere. We present a methodology to calculate the ∆14CO2 that has accumulated in a plant over its growing period, based on a modeling framework consisting of a plant growth model (SUCROS) and an atmospheric transport model (WRF-Chem). We verify our framework against available atmospheric observations and use it to evaluate the ∆14CO2 budget of Europe, which is influenced by both fossil fuel CO2 and nuclear 14CO2 anthropogenic emissions. Finally, we present the results of the 14C analysis of samples of maize leaves that were obtained from the Netherlands, Germany and France in an experimental campaign conducted during 2010-2012. We use our modeling framework to interpret the ∆14CO2 signals of the samples and evaluate the different type of emission sources that have contributed for their final signatures.