Grantee Research Project Results

Impact of Global Change on Urban Air Quality via Changes in Mobile Source Emissions, Background Concentrations, and Regional Scale Meteorological Feedbacks

EPA Grant Number: R833372
Title: Impact of Global Change on Urban Air Quality via Changes in Mobile Source Emissions, Background Concentrations, and Regional Scale Meteorological Feedbacks
Investigators: Kleeman, Michael J. , Schauer, James J. , Chen, Shuhua
Institution: University of California - Davis , University of Wisconsin - Madison
EPA Project Officer: Chung, Serena
Project Period: March 1, 2007 through February 28, 2011 (Extended to February 28, 2013)
Project Amount: $900,000
RFA: Consequences of Global Change For Air Quality (2006) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Air , Climate Change

Objective:

Ozone (O₃) and particulate matter (PM) standards designed to protect public health are routinely violated in California’s South Coast Air Basin (SoCAB) surrounding Los Angeles and the San Joaquin Valley (SJV) in central California. Global change will affect air quality in California through adoption of new technology, altered background concentrations, and evolving meteorological conditions. The magnitude and direction of these effects are unknown, and so the true public health costs of Global Change can not be quantified at this time.

Approach:

The current project aims to quantitatively assess the consequences of Global Change on California air quality by (1) measuring emissions from mobile sources powered by alternative fuels as a function of temperature and humidity, (2) creating a source-oriented PM module for the Weather Research & Forecasting (WRF) model to quantify feedback between air quality and regional meteorology, and (3) calculating California air quality in the year 2030 during a range of O₃ and PM_2.5 pollution events.

Emission rates and composition from light duty vehicles powered by gasoline, gasoline-electric hybrid, and ethanol blends will be measured as a function of temperature and humidity. Emissions from heavy duty engines powered by diesel and biodiesel will also be measured as a function of temperature and humidity. These emissions profiles will be used during simulations of future air quality in California in the presence of altered temperature and humidity. Predictions of future climate produced by Global Climate Models will be dynamically downscaled to the regional scale using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) meteorological model. A source-oriented PM module will be integrated into WRF to study the interactions between pollution and local meteorology. The new model will be used to compare current air pollution episodes in California with those that are expected to occur in the year 2030. Multiple episodes (~30) will be studied in current and future periods to understand the distribution of possible events.

Expected Results:

The source profiles measured during the current project will be useful for all future simulations of air pollution in the United States. The specific model predictions created in this project will contribute to the “weight-of-science” evaluation for the effect of Global Change on urban and regional air quality.

Publications and Presentations:

Publications have been submitted on this project: View all 7 publications for this project

Journal Articles:

Journal Articles have been submitted on this project: View all 7 journal articles for this project

Supplemental Keywords:

source-oriented external mixture air quality model, dilution sampling, E85,, RFA, Scientific Discipline, Air, Ecosystem Protection/Environmental Exposure & Risk, particulate matter, Air Quality, Air Pollutants, climate change, Air Pollution Effects, Chemistry, Monitoring/Modeling, Atmospheric Sciences, Atmosphere, Environmental Engineering, anthropogenic stress, aerosol formation, ambient aerosol, atmospheric particulate matter, atmospheric dispersion models, environmental monitoring, meteorology, climatic influence, emissions monitoring, future projections, global change, ozone, air quality models, climate models, greenhouse gases, airborne aerosols, atmospheric aerosol particles, atmospheric transport, environmental stress, regional emissions model, ecological models, climate model, greenhouse gas, aerosols, atmospheric models, Global Climate Change, atmospheric chemistry, ambient air pollution

Progress and Final Reports:

The 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.