Modelling development and Assessment: Impact of Arctic Shipping Emissions upon Northern Canada

A version of the Environment Canada's regional air quality forecast model (GEM-MACH) has been developed and is being tested and run for assessing various pollution sources affecting the Arctic air quality and environment. The scenarios are currently for 2010 with and without Arctic shipping emissions, with the intention being to explore the impact of current and future emission impacts on the region. The simulations have been run from March through to October 2010 to date, using a recently derived emissions inventory from varied sources to drive the local chemistry together with the regional transport and processing of air constituents which make up the air quality simulation. Various air pollutants are examined including O₃, NO_x, PM2.5 and CO to explore the extent of impact shipping emissions play on the region's air quality and environment of the sensitive and remote conditions which define the Northern Canadian Arctic. Modeled estimates of the magnitude and regional extent of the Arctic shipping induced changes will be presented, as well a comparison with observations of the base simulated state to ascertain the models capability and predictive capacity.