Grantee Research Project Results
2005 Progress Report: Application of a Unified Aerosol-Chemistry-Climate GCM to Understand the Effects of Changing Climate and Global Anthropogenic Emissions on U.S. Air Quality
EPA Grant Number: R830959Title: Application of a Unified Aerosol-Chemistry-Climate GCM to Understand the Effects of Changing Climate and Global Anthropogenic Emissions on U.S. Air Quality
Investigators: Jacob, Daniel J. , Streets, David G. , Mickley, Loretta J. , Rind, David , Seinfeld, John , Fu, Joshua
Institution: Harvard University , California Institute of Technology , NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies , University of Tennessee , Argonne National Laboratory
Current Institution: Harvard University , Argonne National Laboratory , California Institute of Technology , NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies , University of Tennessee
EPA Project Officer: Chung, Serena
Project Period: January 1, 2003 through January 1, 2005 (Extended to January 1, 2006)
Project Period Covered by this Report: January 1, 2005 through January 1, 2006
Project Amount: $900,000
RFA: Assessing the Consequences of Global Change for Air Quality: Sensitivity of U.S. Air Quality to Climate Change and Future Global Impacts (2002) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Air Quality and Air Toxics , Air , Climate Change
Objective:
The Global Climate and Air Pollution (GCAP) project is an integrated assessment of the effects of global change, including changes in both climate and anthropogenic emissions, on ozone and particulate matter (PM) air quality in the United States from 2000 to 2050. It represents one of the first attempts to examine the response of air pollution meteorology to climate change. At present, the sign and magnitude of this response are not known with confidence. The objectives of this research project are to: (1) identify and quantify changes in atmospheric transport (e.g., mixing depths, frequency of stagnation episodes, regional ventilation, and intercontinental transport); (2) analyze and measure the climate-sensitive natural emissions of ozone and PM precursors; and (3) determine the climate-sensitive ozone and PM chemistry. It will lay the foundation for investigation of the effects of climate change on exceedances of air quality standards through nesting of the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) regional model inside a global chemistry-aerosol transport model.
Progress Summary:
Our first pilot study under GCAP used an older version of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) general circulation model (GCM) with online chemical tracers to investigate future changes in air pollution meteorology from 2000 to 2050, following the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) A1 scenario. Assuming constant emissions, this study predicted that the frequency and severity of pollution episodes in the eastern United States would increase in the future climate because of the weakening of the northern midlatitude cyclone tracks. In a second GCAP study, Liao, et al. (2006) used the same GCM as Mickley, et al., (2004) with online full chemistry to examine the sensitivity of aerosol and ozone concentrations to 2000-2100 global change. Following the IPCC SRES A2 scenario for greenhouse gases and anthropogenic emissions, Liao, et al., (2006) found that climate change to some extent mitigates the effects of increasing anthropogenic emissions, at least on a global scale, for ozone and most aerosol species. The exception is secondary organic carbon aerosol, whose global burden increases because of increasing biogenic emissions at higher temperatures. A third GCAP study by Streets, et al., (2004) developed the first future (2030-2050) global emission inventories for carbonaceous aerosols using the IPCC SRES scenarios and concluded that global emissions should decrease though with some regional increases (e.g., over Africa).
We also have validated the tropospheric transport of chemical tracers in the GISS GCM III against present-day observations (Rind, et al., 2006). We completed work on the interface of the GISS GCM III with Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS)-Chem and tested the GISS/GEOS-Chem simulation against present-day observations and with standard GEOS-Chem simulations, which use assimilated meteorological observations (Wu, et al., 2006). We also applied this model to a problem of current interest (what drives differences between models in global budgets of tropospheric ozone?). We developed the capability to drive the mesoscale model (MM5)/CMAQ regional model with dynamic meteorological and chemical boundary conditions from the GISS/GEOS-Chem global model (Li, et al., 2005).
In work that is so far unpublished, we applied the GISS/GEOS-Chem component of the GCAP model to 2000-2050 global change using the IPCC SRES A1 scenario for the well-mixed greenhouse gases and for the anthropogenic emissions of ozone precursors, aerosol precursors, and carbonaceous aerosol. We first conducted a GISS GCM simulation with the 2000-2050 schedule of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations from the A1 scenario and used the resulting output to drive four different GEOS-Chem simulations: (1) present-day climate and emissions; (2) 2050 climate and present-day anthropogenic emissions of ozone and aerosol precursors; (3) present-day climate and 2050 anthropogenic emissions of ozone and aerosol precursors; and (4) 2050 climate and emissions. In brief, our results show that climate change will increase the intensity of pollution episodes over the United States, as previously found by Mickley, et al., (2004), but can be compensated to a large degree by the decreases in anthropogenic emissions of ozone and aerosol precursors projected under the A1 scenario.
Future Activities:
We expect to complete our analysis of the A1 scenario, including regional downscaling of results using MM5/CMAQ.
Journal Articles on this Report : 2 Displayed | Download in RIS Format
| Other project views: | All 23 publications | 12 publications in selected types | All 12 journal articles |
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Liao H, Chen W-T, Seinfeld JH. Role of climate change in global predictions of future tropospheric ozone and aerosols. Journal of Geophysical Research--Atmospheres 2006;111(D12):D12304 (18 pp.). |
R830959 (2005) R830959 (Final) |
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Wu S, Mickley LJ, Jacob DJ, Logan JA, Yantosca RM, Rind D. Why are there large differences between models in global budgets of tropospheric ozone? Journal of Geophysical Research--Atmospheres 2007;112(D5):D05302 (18 pp.). |
R830959 (2005) R830959 (Final) |
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Supplemental Keywords:
chemical transport, volatile organic compounds, nitrogen oxides, sulfates, organics, pollution prevention, environmental chemistry, modeling, climate models, tropospheric ozone, tropospheric aerosol, global climate, air pollution,, RFA, Air, Scientific Discipline, Ecosystem Protection/Environmental Exposure & Risk, Chemistry, particulate matter, Monitoring/Modeling, Atmospheric Sciences, climate change, Environmental Engineering, atmospheric dispersion models, aerosols, air quality, Global Climate Change, ambient aerosol, airborne aerosols, climate model, atmospheric models, global change, aerosol formation, atmospheric chemistry, atmospheric transport, ecological models, environmental monitoring, climate models, environmental measurement, climate variability, atmospheric aerosol particles, environmental stress, meteorology, ozone, ambient air pollution, air quality models, atmospheric particulate matter, greenhouse gases, climatic influence, greenhouse gas, anthropogenic stressRelevant Websites:
http://www.as.harvard.edu/chemistry/trop/gcap/ Exit
Progress and Final Reports:
Original AbstractThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.