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MODELLING PARTICULATE SULPHATE AND NITRATE IN NORTH WEST EUROPE WITH A LAGRANGIAN DISPERSION MODEL. Alison Redington* and Derrick Ryall* Dick Derwent** * Met Office, Exeter, United Kingdom ** rdscientific, Newbury, United Kingdom EMEP Workshop on PM Measurement and Modelling
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MODELLING PARTICULATE SULPHATE AND NITRATE IN NORTH WEST EUROPE WITH A LAGRANGIAN DISPERSION MODEL Alison Redington* and Derrick Ryall* Dick Derwent** * Met Office, Exeter, United Kingdom ** rdscientific, Newbury, United Kingdom EMEP Workshop on PM Measurement and Modelling New Orleans, April 2004
UK POLICY-MAKERS CONCERNS • What are the levels, sources and characteristics of PM10 and PM2.5 in the UK ? • What are the trends in PM10 and PM2.5 ? • What are the extent of exceedances of air quality targets currently and in the future ? Some form of modelling is required to answer these questions.
MODELLING SUSPENDED PARTICULATES IN THE UNITED K INGDOM • Primary vs secondary and inorganic vs organic particulate matter • Particulate sulphate and nitrate is main focus of this study • Role of long range transboundary transport and local formation • Application of the UK Met Office NAME Lagrangian dispersion model • Aim is to give source attribution to particulate sulphate and nitrate at 15 minutes time resolution and 15 km spatial resolution
NAME MODEL • UK Met Office’s operational dispersion model (1-1000’s kms) • Lagrangian - pollutant modelled by large numbers of ‘parcels’ released into the ‘model’ atmosphere • Model driven by meteorological fields from the Met Office’s operational forecast model • Particles are transported by local mean wind in 3-dimensions • Diffusion by turbulence is represented by random walk techniques, displacing particles in both the horizontal and vertical
LAGRANGIAN DISPERSION MODEL Receptor Source 65°N 20°E emissions grid 15°W 43°N Long-range transport and dispersion of an inert tracer
max O3 125 ppb 11/08/03
FORMATION OF SECONDARY INORGANIC AEROSOLS SO2 + OH = HOSO2 HOSO2 + O2 = HO2 + SO3 SO3 + H2O = H2SO4 = sulphate aerosol SO2aq + H2O2 = H2SO4 = sulphate aerosol SO2aq + O3 = H2SO4 = sulphate aerosol NO2 + OH = HNO3 = nitrate aerosol NO2 + O3 = NO3 + O2 NO2 + NO3 = N2O5 = nitrate aerosol NH3aq + HNO3aq = NH4NO3aq = nitrate aerosol
OPERATIONS IN A LAGRANGIAN DISPERSION MODEL • Emit some new air parcels, each loaded up with SO2 and NOx • Move air parcels to new locations with 3-d turbulent wind fields • Locate air parcels in Eulerian grid • Calculate air concentrations in Eulerian grid • Allow for chemical transformations and deposition • Recalculate air parcel masses This is the main time-stepping algorithm in a source-oriented Lagrangian dispersion model.
ANNUAL AVERAGE SO2 CONCENTRATIONS - 1996 Compares well with EMEP observations for 1996
ANNUAL AVERAGE PARTICULATE SULPHATE CONCENTRATIONS - 1996 Compares well with observations for 1996
ANNUAL AVERAGE NO2 CONCENTRATIONS - 1996 Compares well with rural observations for 1996
ANNUAL AVERAGE HNO3 CONCENTRATIONS - 1996 No observations for direct comparison
ANNAUL AVERAGE PARTICULATE NITRATE CONCENTRATIONS - 1996 No observations for direct comparison
ANNUAL AVERAGE SECONDARY INORGANIC AEROSOL - 1996 Tendency to overestimate rural PM10 observations
STATISTICS FOR EVALUATION OF DAILY MEASURED AND MODELLED PARTICULATE SULPHATE FOR 1996 agreement is somewhat disappointing, over-prediction during wintertime, lack of background sulphate from North Atlantic
STATISTICS FOR EVALUATION OF MONTHLY MEASURED AND MODELLED HNO3 AND NO3 FOR 1999-2000 nitrate aerosol is slightly over-predicted, nitric acid is under-predicted and shows poorer performance, however the data are inadequate
WINTERTIME AND SUMMERTIME MODEL PERFORMANCE timing of peaks is excellent, but overestimation during winter
SOURCE ATTRIBUTION • Each air parcel emitted into the NAME model keeps a record of the location where it was emitted • It is straightforward to construct a map showing the origins of the particulate sulphate and nitrate found at any location in the model • The source allocation given for secondary pollutants refers to the origins of the primary pollutant precursors
MEAN DIURNAL VARIATIONS IN PARTICULATE NITRATE DURING 10 DAYS IN MAY 2003 AT A RURAL EMEP SITE AT HARWELL OXFORDSHIRE UK Preliminary data kindly provided by Steve Moorcroft, Casella Stanger
CONCLUSIONS • Model development is severely hampered by lack of good observations of the individual components of PM10 and PM2.5 • These need to be of hourly time resolution and co-located with other air quality measurements • Artefact-free nitrate observations are particularly sparse in Europe and must distinguish ammonium nitrate from sodium and calcium nitrates • Cloud liquid water content, low cloud amount, precipitation amounts and boundary layer depths are difficult quantities to obtain from meteorological models with sufficient accuracy for secondary particle modelling
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS • To the United Kingdom Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs for their support through contract CPEA 7 • To Alison Redington and Derrick Ryall United Kingdom Met Office for their patient work with the NAME model • To Steve Moorcroft, Casella Stanger for contributing his preliminary continuous observations of particulate nitrate • To members of the United Kingdom Air Quality Expert Group for their helpful discussions • To Environment Canada for their generous offer of help with travel costs