WP7: Climate change impacts on air
quality and health
| WP leader: | dr. Katarzyna Juda-Rezler (Warsaw University of Technology, Poland) |
Objectives
Exploitation of the sensitivity of air-pollution levels to potential climate change based on data analysis
of long simulations of offline chemistry air quality models (AQM) driven by Regional Climate Models
(RCMs) for present climate and for future projections.
Comparison of air-pollution levels simulated by online and offline regional air-quality models during certain episodes of the present climate.
Estimation of the key species exceedances of the EU limits for the protection of human health, vegetation and ecosystems as well as WHO guidelines for present climate and for future projections.
Comparison of air-pollution levels simulated by online and offline regional air-quality models during certain episodes of the present climate.
Estimation of the key species exceedances of the EU limits for the protection of human health, vegetation and ecosystems as well as WHO guidelines for present climate and for future projections.
Description of work
To exploit the sensitivity of air-pollution levels to potential climate change, RCM simulations for future
projections and for the control period will be used to drive offline AQM. The following AQM will be
applied: open-source models: CHIMERE, CAMx and CALPUFF as well as own models: POLSOX-II
(WUT) and SMOG (CUNI). These AQM will be adapted to meteorological input data coming from
RCM simulations made by RegCM and ALADIN-Climat RCMs. We will model the interaction between
climate and air quality by predictions of air pollution levels in the selected target regions on the fine
scale of the RCM's (10 km).
Long range transport to the target regions will be taken into account by performing one calculation covering the whole of Europe, driven by RCM with a grid resolution 50x50 km. With respect to the amount of computing time and storage requirement, only 10 years will be calculated for each of the four prospected time intervals. The boundary conditions of this continental grid controlled by the global background concentrations have to be estimated. The output of the European runs will serve as boundary condition for runs on the fine grid scale of the RCM's.
Furthermore these simulations will be used to constrain nested higher resolution runs (10x10 km) for a smaller domain focusing in Central-Eastern Europe both for present and future potential climate. The key species to be simulated will be ozone, sulphur and nitrogen species as well as PM, which have a central role in tropospheric chemistry as well as the strong health impacts. Emphasis will be given to present and future key species exceedances of the EU limits for the protection of human health, vegetation and ecosystems as well as WHO guidelines. Two important aspects which will be considered with caution are a) the emission inventories to be used to constrain the air-quality models for the future projections and b) the chemical boundary conditions for the regional domain. Basis for the applied emission inventories will be the EMEP data base, providing emissions of all main pollutants for the years 1970 to 1995 (every 5 years), from 1996 every year and for projections for 2010 and 2020. In addition local data bases will be used for downscaling EMEP data. As we are assuming that the results of these studies should not be considered as predictions of future air quality levels associated with climate change but rather demonstrate the sensitivity of atmospheric air pollutants to changes in specific meteorological variables, we will keep constant important constraints such as future emissions or chemical boundaries of the regional domain.
Long range transport to the target regions will be taken into account by performing one calculation covering the whole of Europe, driven by RCM with a grid resolution 50x50 km. With respect to the amount of computing time and storage requirement, only 10 years will be calculated for each of the four prospected time intervals. The boundary conditions of this continental grid controlled by the global background concentrations have to be estimated. The output of the European runs will serve as boundary condition for runs on the fine grid scale of the RCM's.
Furthermore these simulations will be used to constrain nested higher resolution runs (10x10 km) for a smaller domain focusing in Central-Eastern Europe both for present and future potential climate. The key species to be simulated will be ozone, sulphur and nitrogen species as well as PM, which have a central role in tropospheric chemistry as well as the strong health impacts. Emphasis will be given to present and future key species exceedances of the EU limits for the protection of human health, vegetation and ecosystems as well as WHO guidelines. Two important aspects which will be considered with caution are a) the emission inventories to be used to constrain the air-quality models for the future projections and b) the chemical boundary conditions for the regional domain. Basis for the applied emission inventories will be the EMEP data base, providing emissions of all main pollutants for the years 1970 to 1995 (every 5 years), from 1996 every year and for projections for 2010 and 2020. In addition local data bases will be used for downscaling EMEP data. As we are assuming that the results of these studies should not be considered as predictions of future air quality levels associated with climate change but rather demonstrate the sensitivity of atmospheric air pollutants to changes in specific meteorological variables, we will keep constant important constraints such as future emissions or chemical boundaries of the regional domain.
Milestones
M7.1 Month 12: Selection of the air-pollution episodes to be simulated from the offline and online
chemistry AQMs.
M7.2 Month 18: Simulations of the offline chemistry model CHIMERE and/or CAMx driven by RCM for Europe with 50x50 grid resolution.
M7.3 Month 24: Results from the comparison of key species levels simulated by the offline and online regional AQMs.
M7.4 Month 28: Simulations of the offline AQMs driven by RCM for a specific smaller domains in Central Eastern Europe with 10 x 10 grid resolution.
M7.5 Month 30: Results from the analysis of the output of the simulations of the offline chemistry AQMs driven by RCM for Europe with 50x50 grid resolution.
M7.6 Month 30: Results from the analysis of the output of the simulations of the offline chemistry AQMs driven by RCM for specific smaller domains in Central Eastern Europe with 10x10 grid resolution.
M7.6 Month 30: Results from the calculations of present and future key species exceedances of the EU limits and WHO guidelines for a specific smaller domains in Central Eastern Europe with 10x10 grid resolution.
M7.2 Month 18: Simulations of the offline chemistry model CHIMERE and/or CAMx driven by RCM for Europe with 50x50 grid resolution.
M7.3 Month 24: Results from the comparison of key species levels simulated by the offline and online regional AQMs.
M7.4 Month 28: Simulations of the offline AQMs driven by RCM for a specific smaller domains in Central Eastern Europe with 10 x 10 grid resolution.
M7.5 Month 30: Results from the analysis of the output of the simulations of the offline chemistry AQMs driven by RCM for Europe with 50x50 grid resolution.
M7.6 Month 30: Results from the analysis of the output of the simulations of the offline chemistry AQMs driven by RCM for specific smaller domains in Central Eastern Europe with 10x10 grid resolution.
M7.6 Month 30: Results from the calculations of present and future key species exceedances of the EU limits and WHO guidelines for a specific smaller domains in Central Eastern Europe with 10x10 grid resolution.
