Abstract: As more than 70% of fossil fuel-based carbon dioxide (CO2) is emitted in urban areas, urban greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions play a crucial role in achieving the emission reduction goals. In addition, air pollutants, such as nitrogen oxides (NOX), and particulate matter (PM) adversely affect urban air quality and are harmful to human health. In this talk, I will present new observational methods and modelling approaches to address two of the most urgent challenges of our time: climate change and air pollution.

I will present a novel measurement method (Differential Column Measurements) and MUCCnet, the world’s first permanent urban GHG monitoring sensor network using this method. By combining the measured data with newly developed modelling methods based on computational fluid dynamics, machine learning, and Bayesian inversion, we have been able to monitor the GHG emissions and sinks, and reveal unknown emission sources at different spatial scales. Furthermore, I will talk about our smart air quality network, consisting of 50 self-developed sensor systems, and our study on the response of air pollutants to emission changes in German cities.

Short Bio: Jia Chen is an associate professor of Environmental Sensing and Modeling at Technical University of Munich, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. She is also an associate with Harvard EPS. Jia Chen studied electrical engineering at the University of Karlsruhe (Dipl.-Ing.) and was awarded a Doctorate of Engineering (Dr.–Ing.) with summa cum laude from Technical University of Munich. From 2011 to 2015 she was a postdoctoral fellow in the Environmental Science & Engineering Department at Harvard University, working with Professor Steven Wofsy. Jia Chen’s research focuses on greenhouse gas emissions and urban air pollution. She develops novel optical sensors, methods, and atmospheric models to localize and quantify greenhouse gas emissions and to understand the metabolism of air pollutants in urban environments. Jia Chen is the science lead for Munich in the EU ICOS Cities project in the framework of European Green Deal. In 2020, Jia Chen was named as Germany’s “Top 40 unter 40” by the German magazine Capital and in 2021 she was selected to be a member of the Global Young Academy. She is the (co-)author of 62 peer-reviewed journal publications and 12 patents. She is also a recipient of Kaiser Friedrich Research Prize, VDE ITG dissertation award as well as the Arnold-Sommerfeld-Award.