Vegetation exposure to ozone over the continental United States: Assessment of exposure indices by the Eta-CMAQ air quality forecast model

The main use of air quality forecast (AQF) models is to predict ozone (O₃) exceedances of the primary O₃ standard for informing the public of potential health concerns. This study presents the first evaluation of the performance of the Eta-CMAQ air quality forecast model to predict a variety of widely used seasonal mean and cumulative O₃ exposure indices associated with vegetation using the U.S. AIRNow O₃ observations. These exposure indices include two concentration-based O₃ indices, M7 and M12 (the seasonal means of daytime 7-h and 12-h O₃ concentrations, respectively), and three cumulative exposure-based indices, SUM06 (the sum of all hourly O₃ concentrations ≥ 0.06 ppm), W126 (hourly concentrations weighed by a sigmoidal weighting function), and AOT40 (O₃ concentrations accumulated over a threshold of 40 ppb during daylight hours). During a three-month simulation (July–September 2005), the model over predicted the M7 and M12 values by 8–9 ppb, or a NMB value of 19% and a NME value of 21%. The model predicts a central belt of high O₃ extending from Southern California to Middle Atlantic where the seasonal means, M7 and M12 (the seasonal means of daytime 7-h and 12-h O₃ concentrations), are higher than 50 ppbv. In contrast, the model is less capable of reproducing the observed cumulative indices. For AOT40, SUM06 and W126, the NMB and NME values are two- to three-fold of that for M7, M12 or peak 8-h O₃ concentrations. The AOT40 values range from 2 to 33 ppm h by the model and from 1 to 40 ppm h by the monitors. There is a significantly higher AOT40 value experienced in the United States in comparison to Europe. The domain-wide mean SUM06 value is 14.4 ppm h, which is about 30% higher than W126, and 40% higher than AOT40 calculated from the same 3-month hourly O₃ data. This suggests that SUM06 and W126 represent a more stringent standard than AOT40 if either the SUM06 or the W126 was used as a secondary O₃ standard. Although CMAQ considerably over predicts SUM06 and W126 values at the low end, the model under predicts the extreme high exposure values (>50 ppm h). Most of these extreme high values are found at inland California sites. Based on our analysis, further improvement of the model is needed to better capture cumulative exposure indices.     

Performance and Diagnostic Evaluation of Ozone Predictions by the Eta-Community Multiscale Air Quality Forecast System during the 2002 New England Air Quality Study

Abstract

A real-time air quality forecasting system (Eta-Community Multiscale Air Quality [CMAQ] model suite) has been developed by linking the National Centers for Environmental Estimation Eta model to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) CMAQ model. This work presents results from the application of the Eta-CMAQ modeling system for forecasting ozone (O₃) over the Northeastern United States during the 2002 New England Air Quality Study (NEAQS). Spatial and temporal performance of the Eta-CMAQ model for O₃ was evaluated by comparison with observations from the EPA Air Quality System (AQS) network. This study also examines the ability of the model to simulate the processes governing the distributions of tropospheric O₃ on the basis of the intensive datasets obtained at the four Atmospheric Investigation, Regional Modeling, Analysis, and Estimation (AIRMAP) and Harvard Forest (HF) surface sites. The episode analysis reveals that the model captured the buildup of O₃ concentrations over the northeastern domain from August 11 and reproduced the spatial distributions of observed O₃ very well for the daytime (8:00 p.m.) of both August 8 and 12 with most of normalized mean bias (NMB) within [H11006]20%. The model reproduced 53.3% of the observed hourly O₃ within a factor of 1.5 with NMB of 29.7% and normalized mean error of 46.9% at the 342 AQS sites.The comparison of modeled and observed lidar O₃ vertical profiles shows that whereas the model reproduced the observed vertical structure, it tended to overestimate at higher altitude. The model reproduced 64 –77% of observed NO₂ photolysis rate values within a factor of 1.5 at the AIRMAP sites. At the HF site, comparison of modeled and observed O₃/nitrogen oxide (NO_x) ratios suggests that the site is mainly under strongly NO_x-sensitive conditions (>53%). It was found that the modeled lower limits of the O₃ production efficiency values (inferred from O₃-CO correlation) are close to the observations.     

Non-stop industries were the main source of air pollution during the 2020 coronavirus lockdown in the North China Plain

Environmental Chemistry Letters - Despite large decreases of emissions of air pollution during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) lockdown in 2020, an unexpected regional severe haze...     

韩国农村好安居

<正>初到韩国,有一种叫人找不到"北"的感觉。这个"北"不是东南西北的北,也不是逛街晕了头,而是分不出城乡差别。韩国是我国的近邻,但中韩建交比较晚,1992年8月9日才正式建立外交关系。中韩建交后,文化交流、贸易往来等走上正常轨道,由于贸易额增加,中国商船往返中韩之间的次数也逐年增加,几年间,在笔者的海员生涯中几乎跑遍了韩     

A study of the ozone formation by ensemble back trajectory-process analysis using the Eta–CMAQ forecast model over the northeastern U.S. during the 2004 ICARTT period

The integrated process rates (IPRs) estimated by the Eta–CMAQ model at grid cells along the trajectory of the air mass transport path were analyzed to quantitatively investigate the relative importance of physical and chemical processes for O₃ formation and evolution over the northeastern U.S. during the 2004 International Consortium for Atmospheric Research on Transport and Transformation (ICARTT) period. The Hybrid Single Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) model is used to determine the back trajectory of air masses reaching the northeast by linking a downwind receptor to upwind source areas. The process analysis is applied to a high O₃ episode occurring on July 22, 2004 at three selected sites in the northeastern U.S. The process analysis at the location of the site shows that during the daytime, the O₃ concentrations in the surface layer are mainly enhanced by the vertical diffusion of O₃-rich air from aloft, followed by horizontal advection (HADV) and chemical production (CHEM), whereas dry deposition (DDEP) and vertical advection (ZADV) mainly deplete O₃ concentrations at the sites of Valley Central (VC), NY and Castle Spring (CS), NH. By integrating the effects of each process over the depth of the daytime planetary boundary layer (PBL), it was found that at the VC site, CHEM and HADV contributed about 53% and 41%, respectively, to O₃ levels within the PBL. This confirms the significance of regional transport of O₃ from the industrialized areas into the Northeast. On the other hand, the process analysis results for O₃ formation in moving air masses indicate that on July 22, large chemical production of O₃ along the transport path over the polluted urban regions leads to significant increase in O₃ in the air mass reaching the VC site, whereas the low chemical production of O₃ along the transport path over the low emission regions leads to the low O₃ concentration at the site of Belleayre Mountain (BM), NY. The dramatic buildup of O₃ concentration from 50 ppb to 102 ppb in the air masses before reaching the VC site after 12:00 EST on 7/22 indicates the significant impact of pollution from the northeastern urban corridor at this site. On the basis of the results at the CS site, it was found that high NO_x emissions along the transport path led to large chemical production of O₃ in the air mass reaching the CS site on July 22. In contrast, the low chemical production of O₃ associated with low emission (relatively clean conditions) along the transport path over the northern portions of the domain is responsible for the low O₃ concentration at the CS site on July 26.     

建在岩石上的王国——摩纳哥的建筑艺术

摩纳哥首都摩纳哥城整个建在阿尔卑斯山脉伸入地中海的一座悬崖上,因而有"悬崖顶上的首都"之称。世界著名的摩纳哥海洋博物馆就建在临海断崖上,有点不可思议。     

厦门海洋性酸雨中有机弱酸的研究

以离子色谱法测定了厦门市海洋性降水中的甲、乙酸及某些阴、阳离子。用多元逐步回归和多对多双重筛选回归等数学方法,分析了降水中弱有机酸及其与阴阳离子的关系;讨论了其来源及对厦门酸雨的贡献。     

High reduction of ozone and particulate matter during the 2016 G-20 summit in Hangzhou by forced emission controls of industry and traffic

Many regions in China experience air pollution episodes because of the rapid urbanization and industrialization over the past decades. Here we analyzed the effect of emission controls implemented during the G-20 2016 Hangzhou summit on air quality. Emission controls included a forced closure of highly polluting industries, and limiting traffic and construction emissions in the cities and surroundings. Particles with aerodynamic diameter lower than 2.5 μm (PM_2.5) and ozone (O₃) were measured. We also simulated air quality using a forecast system consisting of the two-way coupled Weather Research and Forecast and Community Multi-scale Air Quality (WRF-CMAQ) model. Results show PM_2.5 and ozone levels in Hangzhou during the G-20 Summit were considerably lower than previous to the G-20 Summit. The predicted concentrations of ozone were reduced by 25.4%, whereas the predicted concentrations of PM_2.5 were reduced by 56%.     

百慕大群岛:无水资源不断水

<正>提起百慕大,人们自然就会联想起神秘的百慕大魔鬼三角区,"三角区"是海域,而百慕大是地名,它的全名是百慕大群岛,是英国的海外领土,面积54平方公里,人口6.65万(2008年估计),黑人占54.8%,白人占34.1%,混血人占6.4%,位于大西洋之中,其首府是哈密尔顿。百慕大经济繁荣,主要以金融业为主,其次是旅游业,人均GDP居世界前列。     

大气中甲酸和乙酸测定方法研究

本文研究了一种用红色担体经强碱(KOH)处理作为吸附的载体,去离子水超声浸取,离子色谱法分析测定大气中甲酸和乙酸的方法。对固体吸附管的特性进行了实验室内模拟及野外研究。在采样体积为2.4m~3时,该法对大气中甲、乙酸的最低检出限分別为0.2μg/m~3和0.4μg/m~3。利用此法,测出北京冬季大气中甲、乙酸浓度分別为0.5—2.0μg/m~3和0.6—8.7μg/m~3,广州白云山春季大气中甲、乙酸浓度分別为0.2—1.0μg/m~3和<0.4—2.0μg/m~3,桂林市大气中甲、乙酸浓度分别为0.37—0.4μg/m~3和0.5—1.1μg/m~3。