2.5
Influence of global change on regional air quality in the Pacific Northwest region
Jack Chen, Washington State University, Pullman, WA; and J. Avise, B. Lamb, C. Wiedinmyer, A. Guenther, J. F. Lamarque, C. Mass, E. Salathe, S. O’Neill, N. K. Larkin, and D. McKenzie
Global climate change, land use changes, and population growth are interrelated forces that can cause significant changes in future air quality in the United States. In this work, we address the consequences of global climate change on air quality in the continental U.S., with a specific focus on the Pacific Northwest region. We employ a multi-scale numerical modeling system, which comprise of global scale and nested regional models. On the global scale, the NCAR/DOE PCM climate model and the NCAR MOZART2 chemical transport model are used to provide time stepping boundary conditions to regional scale models. On the regional scale, the MM5 meteorology model, SMOKE emission processor and the EPA Community Multi-scale Air Quality (CMAQ) model are used at higher resolution to simulate air quality in continental and regional scales.
To investigate the impact of future climate change on regional air quality, simulations are conducted for a future period (2045–2055) based on predicted climatology and emissions and compared to base case simulations of a contemporary climate realization (1990–2000). Regional emission inventory for both contemporary and future simulations include sources from anthropogenic, biogenic and fire. Contemporary period US anthropogenic emissions are based on the US EPA National Emissions trend 1999 (NEI99) dataset, while future-year anthropogenic emissions are projected using emission growth factors from EPA Economic Growth Analysis System (EGAS), along with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) “business as usual” (A2) scenario. Biogenic emissions for both contemporary and future scenarios are treated using the new Model of Emissions of Gases and Aerosols from Nature (MEGAN) developed at NCAR. Prescribed and wild land fire emissions for the contemporary period are based on fire history data from the Bureau of Land Management, while future-year fire emission are estimated using the new stochastic Fire Scenario Builder (FSB) base on future climatology and land use. In this paper, we present preliminary analysis of results comparing the contaminant levels between the future period and the contemporary base case simulations. The impacted changes between the two cases are from differences in input global climatology and regional emissions.
.Session 2, Air Quality and Climate Change
Tuesday, 31 January 2006, 8:30 AM-9:45 AM, A408
Previous paper