Grantee Research Project Results

2012 Progress Report: Effects of Climate Change and Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Strategies on Air Quality

EPA Grant Number: R834284
Title: Effects of Climate Change and Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Strategies on Air Quality
Investigators: Brouwer, Jacob , Dabdub, Donald
Institution: University of California - Irvine
EPA Project Officer: Hahn, Intaek
Project Period: December 1, 2009 through November 30, 2012 (Extended to November 30, 2013)
Project Period Covered by this Report: December 1, 2011 through November 30,2012
Project Amount: $600,000
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:

The current effort will apply rigorous, peer-reviewed, and scientifically sound analysis techniques to quantify the changes in pollutant emissions and the resulting air quality impacts caused by global climate change and GHG mitigation policies. Crucial to the current analyses are three quantitative analyses processes: (1) rigorous determination of climate change impacts on regional air quality modeling to enable model adaptation, (2) regional pollutant emissions quantification due to technological changes that result from GHG mitigation strategies, and (3) detailed regional air quality modeling to assess environmental impacts. Rigorous analyses of model sensitivity to climate change, to spatial and temporal emissions fields, and to the air quality impacts are required to deliver the desired understanding.

Progress Summary:

Using results from Task 1, we have developed spatially and temporally resolved criteria pollutant emissions resulting from scenario construction, accounting for technology shifts representing GHG mitigation strategies. The initial focus was placed on LDV technologies with the potential to significantly mitigate GHG emissions in the LDV transportation and utilities (i.e., wind, solar, nuclear, biomass) sectors. However, results have consistently demonstrated significant air quality impacts from emissions associated with other energy sectors (e.g., industrial), and from non-LDV technologies (e.g., ships, rail, off-road, HDVs). As such, future work on this project will include these in addition to our original foci.

We also developed scenarios involving shipping ports that represent major sources of both GHGs and pollutants in the study domains. The methodology for spatial and temporal emissions perturbations accounting via multiplicative growth factors of NEI baseline emissions projected to 2050 using the SMOKE model has been established and validated. Hence, we can state that, with confidence, we have the ability to develop spatially and temporally accurate emissions that will be used throughout the remainder of the project.

During this period, we have conducted detailed air quality assessments to examine impacts of technologies shifts via the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model in California, in addition to previous work for both Texas and the NEUS. Spatially and temporally resolved emissions from technology-based scenarios were used as input in rigorous simulations of air quality for the California study domain, in addition to the already achieved NEUS and Texas study domains. The results will be used in the development and assessment of additional, more detailed scenarios involving port and industrial activity, in addition to the targeted sectors previously identified and emphasized in this work.

Future Activities:

New simulations will be conducted to analyze the effects of meteorological conditions and background pollutant concentrations on the emissions and air quality impacts in scenarios developed for Texas, the NEUS and California.

Sets of plausible scenarios, in addition to sensitivity scenarios, will be developed that seek to elucidate impacts of technologies across sectors with a goal of maximizing co-benefits of GHG mitigation and air quality improvement. Current scenarios focus heavily on LDVs and power sector technologies; however, future scenarios will have an emphasis on goods movement sector transportation technologies. In addition, impacts from the industrial sector will also be considered. Emissions perturbations for constructed scenarios will be accounted for spatially and temporally using established methodologies.

Air quality simulations will be conducted to examine future impacts of developed emissions fields in the study domains. Emissions factors derived from MARKAL model runs in current collaboration with the EPA will be used to compare the impacts of alternative cases to base emissions.

Journal Articles:

No journal articles submitted with this report: View all 8 publications for this project

Supplemental Keywords:

Electric power generation, transportation, ozone, particulate matter, greenhouse gases, California, Northeast, RFA, Air, Atmosphere, Air Pollution Effects, climate change, air quality modeling

Relevant Websites:

Advanced Power and Energy Program: http://www.apep.uci.edu/ Exit

Computational Environmental Sciences Laboratory: http://albeniz.eng.uci.edu/dabdub/ Exit

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.