Air Quality Applied Sciences Team (AQAST)EARTH SCIENCE SERVING AIR QUALITY MANAGEMENT NEEDS

satellites

suborbital platforms

models

AQAST

Air Quality Management Needs

• Pollution monitoring• Exposure assessment• AQ forecasting• Source attribution of events• Quantifying emissions• Assessment of natural and international influences• Understanding of transport, chemistry, aerosol processes• Understanding of climate-AQ interactions

AQAST

Earth science resources

AQAST Membership: PIs and Co-Is• Daniel Jacob (leader), Loretta Mickley (Harvard)• Greg Carmichael (U. Iowa)• Dan Cohan (Rice U.)• Russ Dickerson (U. Maryland)• Bryan Duncan, Yasuko Yoshida, Melanie Follette-Cook (NASA/GSFC); Jennifer Olson (NASA/LaRC)• David Edwards (NCAR) • Arlene Fiore (Columbia); Meiyun Lin (Princeton)• Jack Fishman, Ben de Foy (Saint Louis U.)• Daven Henze, Jana Milford (U. Colorado)• Tracey Holloway, Steve Ackerman (U. Wisconsin); Bart Sponseller (Wisconsin DRC)• Edward Hyer, Jeff Reid, Doug Westphal, Kim Richardson (NRL)• Pius Lee, Tianfeng Chai (NOAA/NESDIS)• Yang Liu, Matthew Strickland (Emory U.), Bin Yu (UC Berkeley)• Richard McNider, Arastoo Biazar (U. Alabama – Huntsville)• Brad Pierce (NOAA/NESDIS)• Ted Russell, Yongtao Hu, Talat Odman (Georgia Tech); Lorraine Remer (NASA/GSFC)• David Streets (Argonne)• Jim Szykman (EPA/ORD/NERL)• Anne Thompson, William Ryan, Suellen Haupt (Penn State U.)

AQAST organization• AQAST supports two types of projects:

Investigator Projects (IPs). These involve typically a single AQAST member working with an air quality management partner;

Tiger Team Projects (TTPs). These involve a collaboration of several AQAST members pooling their expertise to address urgent needs from one or more air quality management partners.

• AQAST projects must bridge Earth Science and air quality management:Focus on use of Earth Science resources Clear air quality management outcomes 1-year deliverables of value for air quality agencies

• AQAST has great flexibility in how it allocates its resources Members are encouraged to adjust their IPs to the evolving needs of air

quality management The TTPs are redefined yearly to address the most pressing needsThe team is self-organizing and can respond quickly to demands

Help us help you! Contact Daniel Jacob (djacob@fas.harvard.edu) to discuss how AQAST can help address your specific AQ management needs

Scope of current AQAST projects (IPs and TTPs)

Partner agency

• Local: RAQC, BAAQD• State: TCEQ, MDE, Wisconsin DNR, CARB, Iowa DNR, GAEPD, GFC• Interstate: EPA Region 8, LADCO • National: NPS, NOAA, EPA

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Earth Science resource

Satellites: MODIS, MISR, MOPITT, AIRS, OMI, TES, GOES

Suborbital: ARCTAS, DISCOVER-AQ, ozonesondes, PANDORA

Models: MOZART, CAM AM-3, GEOS-Chem, RAQMS, STEM, GISS, IPCC

AQAST bimonthly newsletter subscribe through web site or send me email

AQAST website: http://acmg.seas.harvard.edu/aqastEmail: djacob@fas.harvard.edu

GEOS-Chem model simulation of background ozone over the USin support of the current ozone ISA and REA

• 0.5o x0.67o resolution for North America, 2o x2.5o global, 48 vertical layers

• Driven by NASA GEOS-5 assimilated meteorological data• Detailed mechanistic representation of ozone-NOx -VOC-aerosol chemistry• 2006 anthropogenic emissions: NEI05 for US, CAC for Canada, BRAVO (scaled) for Mexico, EMEP for Europe, Streets for East Asia, EDGAR (scaled) for rest of world• Natural sources: lightning (OTD/LIS), fires (GFED2 monthly), soils (Yienger), stratosphere (Linoz)• 2006-2008 3-year simulation; focus on 2006 for evaluation

2x2.50.5x0.667

Color scale Indicates topography (surface pressure)

Zhang et al. [2011] – http://acmg.seas.harvard.edu/publications/zhang2011.pdf

Four GEOS-Chem simulations

Standard – as described aboveUS background – no US anthro emissionsNA background - no N.American anthro emissions Natural – no anthro emissions worldwide

2006 MDA8 ozone at CASTNet sites- with mean (4th highest) inset

US background: see Wang et al. [2009]http://acmg.seas.harvard.edu/publications/wangh2009_ozone.pdf

Ozone statistics for the US (CASTNet sites)

+ > 1.5 km

PRB: 27 ± 8

40 ± 7

Natural: 18 ± 6

27 ± 6

Frequency distribution of MDA8 ozonefor March-August 2006

• GEOS-Chem is overall unbiased• PRB is 4 ppb higher than in previous GEOS-Chem versions• Model shows little interannual variability for 2006-2008, neither do observations

Obs: 50 ± 13Model: 52 ± 12

58 ± 957 ± 10

Zhang et al. [2011]

Model “4th highest” MDA8 ozone in 2006

Background may limit or confuse ability of West to achieve a 60 ppb NAAQS; no such issue in East

Annual 4th highest ozone

PRB for annual 4th highest ozone 4th highest PRB value

Zhang et al. [2011]

Model PRB statistics vs. observed ozone in Intermountain West

Comparison of daily MDA8 ozone concentrations for the ensemble of elevated sites (>1.5 km; 11 sites) in Intermountain West for spring and summer 2006

Model underestimates high extrema in spring (> 75 ppbv) - stratosphere Correlation with measurements is poor in summer – lightning, wildfires

1:1 line

max

min

75th50th25th

r = 0.57 r = 0.33

Lin Zhang, Harvard

Model underestimate of stratospheric intrusions in spring

Sample stratospheric intrusion at Pinedale (WY) : model captures timing but not magnitude.

Obs.

model

PRB

Observed vs. simulated MDA8 ozone in spring 2006 at the 11 elevated CASTNet sites, colored by model stratospheric ozone concentration.

Model has correct STE and vertical transport; we attribute problem to the general difficulty of Eulerian models in resolving fine structures.

Lin Zhang, Harvard

observations

stratosphere

Ozone enhancement from lightning in Intermountain West

Model lightning increases ozone concentrations by 7-19 ppbv in summer, comparable to enhancements from US anthropogenic emissions.

This lightning influence in the model is biased high, even though lightning location is constrained by OTD/LIS satellite observations;

focus future model improvement on NOx yield per lightning flash, vertical distribution

Lin Zhang, Harvard

model

PRB

observations

lightning

Sensitivity of model ozoneto wildfire emission inventory

fire reportsmonthly

Maximum fire enhancements of MDA8 ozoneIn GEOS-Chem – August 2006

• Model is highly sensitive to choice of inventory, spatial and temporal resolution• Influence of fires is mainly limited to fire region; little influence at CASTNet sites in 2006• Need to examine other years, MOPITT and AIRS CO data for fires

Lin Zhang, Harvard

Effect of bromine chemistry on the ozone background

• Bromine sources in troposphere from marine bromocarbons (especially bromoform, CHBr3 ) and sea-salt debromination• Bromine chemistry drives catalytic ozone loss and NOx loss

GEOS-Chem mean ozone decreases (ppb) from bromine chemistry

Background surface ozone in US decreases by 3 ppb (annual mean)

Justin Parrella, Harvard

Effect of HO2 conversion to H2O in aerosols

• Atmospheric observations suggest a large loss of HO2 to aerosols missing from current models.• Coupled Cu-Fe transition metal redox chemistry could drive such an uptake and convert HO2 to H2O

Jingqiu Mao, submitted

GEOS-Chem mean surface ozone decrease (ppb) from HO2 H2O chemistry

Background surface ozone in US decreases by 2-5 ppb (annual mean)

Question from Adele Malone: “where should we be making measurements (nationally; regionally) and what other parameters should we be measuring?”

• Spring-summer measurements at remote sites and over a range of altitudes provide the best tests of model background ozone

• ozone at remote sites can often approximate background• background increases with altitude• plateau better than mountaintop

• Concurrent CO measurements with 10 ppb sensitivity can greatly help for source attribution of background ozone

• CO very high (fires), high (urban), low (lightning), very low (stratosphere)

• Have money to spare? Invest in an ozone lidar• continuous measurement of ozone vertical distribution

• Get into NASA (and NOAA)’s deep pockets with research-to-operations motivation• Geostationary satellite for ozone vertical distribution (GEO-CAPE)• Aircraft campaigns, ozonesondes• AQAST is your advocate! Spread the word that AQAST is an important resource

for AQ management

McDonald-Buller et al., Establishing Policy Relevant Background (PRB) Ozone Concentrations in the United States, Environ. Sci. Technol., 2011

http://acmg.seas.harvard.edu/publications/mcdonaldbuller2011.pdf