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Ammonia emissions in the United States, European Union, and China derived by high-resolution inversion of ammonium wet deposition data: Interpretation with a new agricultural emissions inventory (MASAGE_NH3)
Citation:
Paulot, F., D. Jacob, R. Pinder, J. Bash, K. Travis, AND D. Henze. Ammonia emissions in the United States, European Union, and China derived by high-resolution inversion of ammonium wet deposition data: Interpretation with a new agricultural emissions inventory (MASAGE_NH3). JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH: ATMOSPHERES. American Geophysical Union, Washington, DC, 119(7):4343-4364, (2015).
Impact/Purpose:
The National Exposure Research Laboratory’s Atmospheric Modeling Division (AMAD) conducts research in support of EPA’s mission to protect human health and the environment. AMAD’s research program is engaged in developing and evaluating predictive atmospheric models on all spatial and temporal scales for forecasting the Nation’s air quality and for assessing changes in air quality and air pollutant exposures, as affected by changes in ecosystem management and regulatory decisions. AMAD is responsible for providing a sound scientific and technical basis for regulatory policies based on air quality models to improve ambient air quality. The models developed by AMAD are being used by EPA, NOAA, and the air pollution community in understanding and forecasting not only the magnitude of the air pollution problem, but also in developing emission control policies and regulations for air quality improvements.
Description:
We use the adjoint of a global 3-D chemical transport model (GEOS-Chem) to optimizeammonia (NH3+4 wet deposition fluxes. Optimized emissions are derived on a 2◦ × 2.5◦ grid for individual months and years. Error characterization in the optimization includes model errors in precipitation. Annual optimized emissions are 2.8 Tg NH3−N a−1 for the contiguous U.S., 3.1 Tg NH3−N a−1 for the European Union, and 8.4 Tg NH3−N a−1 for China. Comparisons to previous inventories for the U.S. and European Union show consistency (∼±15%) in annual totals but some large spatial and seasonal differences. We develop a new global bottom-up inventory of NH3 emissions (Magnitude And Seasonality of AgriculturalEmissions model for NH3 (MASAGE_NH3)) to interpret the results of the adjoint optimization. MASAGE_NH3 provides information on the magnitude and seasonality of NH3 emissions from individual crop and livestock sources on a 0.5◦ × 0.5◦ grid. We find that U.S. emissions peak in the spring in the Midwest due to corn fertilization and in the summer elsewhere due to manure. The seasonality of European emissions is more homogeneous with a well-defined maximum in spring associated with manure and mineral fertilizer application. There is some evidence for the effect of European regulations of NH3 emissions, notably alarge fall decrease in northern Europe. Emissions in China peak in summer because of the summertimeapplication of fertilizer for double
URLs/Downloads:
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JGR- Atmospheres
