A43I-3394:
Coupled Impact of Changing Emissions and Meteorology on Air Quality Inferred from Remote Sensing Observations and Model Simulations
Thursday, 18 December 2014
Xueling Liu1, Lukas C Valin1,2, Sally E Pusede1,3 and Ronald C Cohen1, (1)University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, United States, (2)Lamont -Doherty Earth Observatory, Palisades, NY, United States, (3)NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA, United States
Abstract:
Urban air quality strongly depends on local emissions and meteorological variables. Observations usually are unable to separately quantify the effects of these two processes. We describe a case study of Denver Colorado. We present a method to infer the sensitivity of OH to water vapor mixing ratio using the summertime NO2 column observations combined with the nonlinear relationship between NO2 molecules and OH radicals. A doubling in the water vapor leads to an increase in average OH concentration and a decrease of NO2 lifetime in low winds. The WRF-Chem model has been used to simulate summertime atmospheric composition and deduce the mechanisms of the variation observed from space based instruments.
