Model assessment of the NO2 diurnal cycle over the United States
Abstract
This study assesses the temporal and spatial variation of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) to inform air quality management. The NO2 diurnal cycle varies due to emissions from vehicle usage and power plant operations as well as changes in boundary layer and chemical processes. This study expands prior research to evaluate the spatial and temporal variability of NO2 concentrations with simulations from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) Modeling System version 5.01.1. The CMAQ modeling system utilizes a 12 km by 12 km grid with 25 vertical layers. We identify patterns in occurrence of maximum and minimum concentrations and examine how these vary across urban and rural regions in the continental United States. Both surface and column NO2 are evaluated to support analysis of ground-based measurements and satellite retrievals. This work in particular will inform future analysis of the geostationary satellite instrument Tropospheric Emissions Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) from NASA.
Anthropogenic and biogenic emissions were simulated based on a period run of summer 2011 from the U.S. EPA 2011 National Emissions Inventory and Model of Emissions of Gases and Aerosols from Nature version 2.1. Present-day meteorology was downscaled in the Weather Research Forecasting model from the North America Regional Re-Analysis data. This study will compare modeled data with available measurements, to assess diurnal variability and associated processes.- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFM.A33H3018M
- Keywords:
-
- 0305 Aerosols and particles;
- ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE;
- 0317 Chemical kinetic and photochemical properties;
- ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE;
- 0345 Pollution: urban and regional;
- ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE;
- 0365 Troposphere: composition and chemistry;
- ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE