Abstract
This study presents the first investigation of the methane (CH4) emissions of a large festival. Munich Oktoberfest, the world's largest folk festival, is a potential source of CH4 as a large amount of natural gas for cooking and heating is used. In 2018 we measured the CH4 emissions of Oktoberfest using in situ measurements combined with a Gaussian plume dispersion model. Measurements were taken while walking and biking around the perimeter of the Oktoberfest premises (Theresienwiese) at different times of the day, during the week and at the weekend. The measurements showed enhancements of up to 100 ppb compared to background values and measurements after Oktoberfest. The average emission flux of Oktoberfest is determined as (6:7 ± 0:6) μ g.m2 s/-1. Additional analyses, including the daily emission cycle and comparisons between emissions and the number of visitors, suggest that CH4 emissions of Oktoberfest are not due solely to the human biogenic emissions. Instead, fossil fuel CH4 emissions, such as incomplete combustion or loss in the gas appliances, appear to be the major contributors to Oktoberfest emissions. Our results can help to develop CH4 reduction policies and measures to reduce emissions at festivals and other major events in cities. Furthermore, events with a limited duration have not yet been included in the state-of-the-art emission inventories, such as TNO-MACC, EDGAR or IER. Our investigations show that these emissions are not negligible. Therefore, these events should be included in future emission inventories.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 3683-3696 |
| Number of pages | 14 |
| Journal | Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics |
| Volume | 20 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 27 Mar 2020 |
Funding
Acknowledgements. We thank Peter Swinkels and his colleagues from Picarro Inc. who made it possible for us to borrow the GasS-couter; Jörg Ochs (Munich municipal utilities, SWM) for providing us with helpful information about the Munich gas distribution system; Hanns-Erik Endres, Manfred Engl, and colleagues from Fraunhofer EMFT, Martin Christ (LMU), and the colleagues from Klenze Gymnasium Munich for providing access to measurement sites; Markus Garhammer, Matthias Wiegner, and Mark Wenig (LMU) for providing us wind and boundary layer height data; Anna-Leah Nickl and Mariano Mertens (DLR) for running high-resolution wind forecasts; Konrad Koch (TUM) for providing us detailed information about the Munich sewer system and helpful discussions; Rachel Chang and Frank Keppler for fruitful discussions; our students Ankit Shekhar, Xiao Bi, and Homa Ghasemifard for helping with the measurements; the reviewers for their valuable comments; and Stephen Starck, Ankit Shekhar, and Rita von Grafenstein for proofreading a previous version of the paper. Jia Chen and Florian Dietrich are supported by Technis-che Universität München – Institute for Advanced Study, funded by the German Excellence Initiative and the European Union Seventh Framework Programme under grant agreement no. 291763. Financial support. This work was supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Technical University of Munich (TUM) in the framework of the Open Access Publishing Program.