Evaluation of a U.S. National Emissions Inventory of PM2.5 Species
Abstract
This work explores the potential of speciating PM2.5 emissions to evaluate inventories against ambient pollutant measurements. Previously developed (Reff et al., Environ. Sci Technol., 2009, vol. 43, 5790-5796) source profiles of PM2.5 trace elements, carbon, and ions are applied to the U.S. EPA's 2005 National Emissions Inventory (NEI) to create a database of emissions disaggregated by species, source category, location, and time period (annual and monthly). These emissions are then "diluted" to produce projected ambient concentrations, which can be directly compared to measurements from monitoring networks. Dilution is performed by multiplying emissions against ratios of elemental carbon (EC) concentrations to EC emissions from a CMAQ modeling run that employed the same version of the NEI. After emissions dilution and spatial aggregation to the Core-Based Statistical Area (CBSA) level, various statistical and graphical comparisons of ambient measurements to emissions in each of the four dimensions above are then performed to diagnose gross errors in the 2005 PM2.5 NEI. Results are anticpated to be highly useful for developing future versions of the NEI, since they will allow developers to focus their efforts on the regions of the inventory that are most in need of improvement.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2012
- Bibcode:
- 2012AGUFM.A11H0142R
- Keywords:
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- 0305 ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE / Aerosols and particles;
- 6329 POLICY SCIENCES / Project evaluation;
- 9350 GEOGRAPHIC LOCATION / North America