Grantee Research Project Results

2009 Progress Report: Analysis of the Co-benefits of Greenhouse Gas Abatement for Global and US Air Quality under Future Climate Scenarios

EPA Grant Number: R834285
Title: Analysis of the Co-benefits of Greenhouse Gas Abatement for Global and US Air Quality under Future Climate Scenarios
Investigators: West, J. Jason , Hanna, Adel , Smith, Steven J. , Horowitz, Larry W. , Emmons, Louisa , Vizuete, William
Institution: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Current Institution: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory , National Center for Atmospheric Research , Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
EPA Project Officer: Chung, Serena
Project Period: September 1, 2009 through August 31, 2013
Project Period Covered by this Report: September 1, 2009 through November 30,2010
Project Amount: $300,000
RFA: Adaptation for Future Air Quality Analysis and Decision Support Tools in Light of Global Change Impacts and Mitigation (2008) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Air Quality and Air Toxics , Air , Climate Change

Objective:

Actions to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) will affect air quality directly through reductions in emissions of co-emitted air pollutants, and indirectly through changes in global climate. Research on the effects of climate change on air quality has emphasized meteorological downscaling to translate future climate change from general circulation models (GCMs) to a regional scale. Here we propose to emphasize methods of chemical downscaling, in which future climate and pollutant emissions will be simulated in a global chemical transport model (CTM) to provide initial and boundary conditions for a US-focused regional CTM. We use these methods to address the air quality co-benefits of actions to reduce GHG emissions, both globally and in the United States, by analyzing the mitigation of methane emissions and the control of GHGs generally, in future scenarios to 2050.

Progress Summary:

Overall, progress under this grant has been very good, and is expected to lead to important findings in future years. Much of the work on this project to date has involved learning, developing, and applying methods of meteorological and chemical downscaling that will be central to the model applications that are central to this project. We have learned that doing the meteorological downscaling well, using the WRF meteorological model, is a significant and important challenge; consequently, we have made significant efforts in this first year to develop and test these methods thoroughly. We now are at the point where we believe we have completed the WRF modeling for the first exercise in which we will model the effects of changes in methane concentrations on ozone and particulate matter (PM) air quality at fine resolution over the United States. We anticipate that these methods will be useful for further applications, including modeling the long-range transport of air pollution, beyond the scope of this project.

In addition to this work, other work in collaboration with Dr. Steven Smith has developed means of creating emissions input files for MOZART-4 from the scenarios that he models in the energy-economics model GCAM. This capability will be used in future analyses in this project and beyond. Presently, we are completing a publication on the use of GCAM with MOZART-2, in which air pollutant emissions in future scenarios were simulated in MOZART-2 to evaluate future air pollutant concentrations. Through an iterative process, then, air pollutant emission controls were adjusted to attain better consistency between ozone and PM concentrations and economic well-being among world regions. This process was used in the development of the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenarios, which will be used in the forthcoming IPCC Fifth Assessment Report.

Future Activities:

Once the meterological modeling for the first set of simulations is complete, we plan to progress with simulations as planned in the original proposal. We first will address the effects of global reductions in methane on air quality in the United States at fine resolution. We will conduct the simulations outlined in the original proposal – first using existing MOZART-2 simulations and then conducting new global simulations with MOZART-4. We also have identified additional simulations that will give increased scientific and policy insight, including an investigation of the importance of direct reactions involving methane versus changing radical species in the new boundary conditions, and their relevance in explaining differences in responses to methane in MOZART-4 and CMAQ.

The second major task will involve simulations of future air quality under the RCP scenarios, to quantify the co-benefits of global actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in scenarios to 2050. We plan to follow the outline of simulations in the original proposal. We have started on this process by collaborating with Dr. Smith. We anticipate that these simulations will begin in earnest during year two of the project, starting with the MOZART-4 simulations, and then progressing to the meteorological and chemical downscaling for those simulations, but these simulations likely will not be completed until years 3 or 4.

Journal Articles on this Report : 1 Displayed | Download in RIS Format

Publications Views
Other project views:	All 15 publications	6 publications in selected types	All 6 journal articles

Publications
Type	Citation	Project	Document Sources
Journal Article	Smith SJ, West JJ, Kyle P. Economically consistent long-term scenarios for air pollutant emissions. Climatic Change 2011;108(3):619-627.	R834285 (2009) R834285 (2011) R834285 (2012) R834285 (Final)	Abstract: SpringerLink-Abstract Exit

Supplemental Keywords:

PM2.5, PM10, multi-pollutant strategies, climate-air interactions, RFA, Air, Atmosphere, Air Pollution Effects, climate change, air quality, environmental monitoring, GHG

Relevant Websites:

www.unc.edu/~jjwest

Progress and Final Reports:

Original Abstract

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.