4-th Annual UCAR/NCAR Early Career Scientists Assembly (ECSA) Junior Faculty Forum on Future Scientific Directions (JFF)

Air Quality Management: Recent progress and future directions

Subtopics

Air Quality Measuring

There are numerous constraints involved in the air quality measurements, such as: the poor spatial and temporal resolution, incomplete information on sources and evolution of pollutants, inability to accurately measure composition and size distributions of particulate pollutants, and a poor understanding of the complex nonlinear relationship among pollutants. One aim of this topic is to propose potential solutions to these and other constraints. For example, to investigate the use of Earth observing systems (e.g., satellites) to further inform the measurements, placement of monitoring stations and optimisation techniques, complementary use of statistical models allowing for a better representation of pollutants' distribution and interactions, use of receptor models, etc.

Air Quality Modeling

Our understanding of the complex physical, chemical and transport mechanisms that govern air pollutants is limited and needs to be improved. Some issues include: (i) Current spatial resolution needs to be increased (< 1km) in order to evaluate the real exposure to inhabitants at the urban scale, (ii) A better representation of urban processes (e.g., urban boundary layer and heat fluxes) is required, (iii) Account needs to be taken for long-range transport of sporadically emmitted pollutants (e.g., wild-fire emmissions, dust episodes), and (iv) There is a necessity to address issues pertaining to extreme pollution events and air quality in highly polluted environments (e.g., mega-cities). Another aim of this topic is to propose ideas for developing better models, perhaps using statistical models to improve on the physical ones.

Regulations and Public Health

Similar constraints as those above contribute to difficulties in protecting public health and the environment from pollution. For example, (i) Complex physical, chemical and transport mechanisms are difficult to predict and regulate, (ii) Economic barriers often inhibit adequate coverage of monitoring networks, and (iii) Other non-health related influences on regulatory standards may interfere with an optimum air quality management system. Furthermore, there are challenges associated with evaluating the efficacy of regulatory programs, such as evaluation and validation of: (i) Observed air quality, (ii) Air quality models, and (iii) Impacts on health and the environment from air-quality regulation.

• White Paper (first draft)
• Presentation by Jerome Fast (pdf)
• Presentation by Sasha Madronich (pdf)
• Presentation by Chris Paciorek (pdf)
• Presentation by Gabi Pfister (pdf)
• Presentation by Sverre Vedal (pdf)

Some Relevant Papers*

* Heffernan, J.E. and J.A. Tawn, 2004. A conditional approach for multivariate extreme values, J. R. Stat. Society B 66(3):497-530(34).
* Holland, David M., William M. Cox, Rich Scheffe, Alan J. Cimorelli, Douglas Nychka, and Philip K. Hopke, 2003. Spatial prediction of air quality data, EM August 2003: 31--35.
* Thompson, Mary Lou, Joel Reynolds, Lawrence H. Cox, Peter Guttorp, and Paul D. Sampson, 2001. A review of statistical methods for the meteorological adjustment of tropospheric ozone, Atmospheric Environment 35:617--630.
* Jun, Mikyoung and Michael L. Stein, 2004. Statistical comparison of observed and CMAQ modeled daily sulfate levels, Atmospheric Environment 38:4427--4436.
* Poirot R.L., P.R. Wishinski, P.K. Hopke, et al., 2001. Comparative application of multiple receptor methods to identify aerosol sources in northern Vermont, ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY 35(23):4622--4636.
* Seigneur, C., 2005. Air pollution: Current challenges and future opportunities, AICHE JOURNAL 51(2):356--364.
* Hodzic, A., R. Vautard, H. Chepfer, P. Goloub, P. Chazette, and L. Menut, 2005. Evolution of aerosol optical thickness over Europe during the August 2003 heat wave as seen from POLDER data and CHIMERE model simulations, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 5:4115­-4141, pdf.

*The above list is by no means a comprehensive list of relevant papers, but is intended to provide potential attendees with a better understanding of what the intention of the discussions is to be.

Topic chair: Alma Hodzic