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Incorporation of Volcanic SO2 Emissions in H-CMAQ Modeling System and its Impacts on Sulfate Aerosol Concentration across the Northern Hemisphere
Citation:
Itahashi, S., R. Mathur, C. Hogrefe, S. Napelenok, AND Y. Zhang. Incorporation of Volcanic SO2 Emissions in H-CMAQ Modeling System and its Impacts on Sulfate Aerosol Concentration across the Northern Hemisphere. 2019 Community Modeling and Analysis System (CMAS), Chapel Hill, NC, October 21 - 23, 2019.
Impact/Purpose:
SO2 emissions from volcanos in the Pacific Rim region can potentially influence aerosol sulfate levels in air masses transported to the western U.S. and consequently impact background particulate matter levels. This study examines the potential importance of volcanic emissions on background PM levels by incorporating volcanic emissions in the hemispheric version of CMAQ.
Description:
The Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) modeling system has been recently extended by the U.S. EPA to the hemispheric scale (H-CMAQ). The input emission data for H-CMAQ can be configured with available emission inventories; however, current applications have lacked inclusion of possible impacts of volcanic SO2 emissions. Because volcanoes are mostly located in Pacific Rim region, their emissions could impact ambient sulfate aerosol concentration over both Asia and the U.S. We analyze the impact of volcanic SO2 emissions on large scale air pollutant distributions during April 2010, a period during which trans-Pacific transport of photochemical oxidants (Ox) has been previously analyzed using the H-CMAQ modeling system. The results show increase in sulfate aerosol concentration of more than 0.5 μg/m3 over coastal East Asia, eastern Pacific, and western Atlantic. This value corresponds to a 10-20% increase compared to the base-case simulation which did not include volcanic SO2 emissions. This work will improve our understanding of the importance of volcanic SO2 emissions on ambient sulfate aerosol concentration over northern Hemisphere based on the state-of-the-art hemispheric modeling system.
