Abstract. The Meteorological Synthesizing Centre-West (MSC-W) of the European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (EMEP) has been performing model calculations in support of the Convention on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP) for more than 30 years. The EMEP MSC-W chemical transport model is still one of the key tools within European air pollution policy assessments. Traditionally, the model has covered all of Europe with a resolution of about 50 km × 50 km, and extending vertically from ground level to the tropopause (100 hPa). The model has changed extensively over the last ten years, however, with flexible processing of chemical schemes, meteorological inputs, and with nesting capability: the code is now applied on scales ranging from local (ca. 5 km grid size) to global (with 1 degree resolution). The model is used to simulate photo-oxidants and both inorganic and organic aerosols. In 2008 the EMEP model was released for the first time as public domain code, along with all required input data for model runs for one year. The second release of the EMEP MSC-W model became available in mid 2011, and a new release is targeted for summer 2012. This publication is intended to document this third release of the EMEP MSC-W model. The model formulations are given, along with details of input data-sets which are used, and a brief background on some of the choices made in the formulation is presented. The model code itself is available at www.emep.int, along with the data required to run for a full year over Europe.

No abstract

Bioenergy from forest residues can be used to avoid fossil carbon emissions, but removing biomass from forests reduces carbon stock sizes and carbon input to litter and soil. The magnitude and longevity of these carbon stock changes determine how effective measures to utilize bioenergy from forest residues are to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the energy sector and to mitigate climate change. In this study, we estimate the variability of GHG emissions and consequent climate impacts resulting from producing bioenergy from stumps, branches and residual biomass of forest thinning operations in Finland, and the contribution of the variability in key factors, i.e. forest residue diameter, tree species, geographical location of the forest biomass removal site and harvesting method, to the emissions and their climate impact. The GHG emissions and the consequent climate impacts estimated as changes in radiative forcing were comparable to fossil fuels when bioenergy production from forest residues was initiated. The emissions and climate impacts decreased over time because forest residues were predicted to decompose releasing CO 2 even if left in the forest. Both were mainly affected by forest residue diameter and climatic conditions of the forest residue collection site. Tree species and the harvest method of thinning wood (whole tree or stem-only) had a smaller effect on the magnitude of emissions. The largest reduction in the energy production climate impacts after 20 years, up to 62%, was achieved when coal was replaced by the branches collected from Southern Finland, whereas the smallest reduction 7% was gained by using stumps from Northern Finland instead of natural gas. After 100 years the corresponding values were 77% and 21%. The choice of forest residue biomass collected affects significantly the emissions and climate impacts of forest bioenergy.

No abstract

Abstract. The DO3SE (Deposition of O3 for Stomatal Exchange) model is an established tool for estimating ozone (O3) deposition, stomatal flux and impacts to a variety of vegetation types across Europe. It has been embedded within the EMEP (European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme) photochemical model to provide a policy tool capable of relating the flux-based risk of vegetation damage to O3 precursor emission scenarios for use in policy formulation. A key limitation of regional flux-based risk assessments has been the assumption that soil water deficits are not limiting O3 flux due to the unavailability of evaluated methods for modelling soil water deficits and their influence on stomatal conductance (gsto), and subsequent O3 flux. This paper describes the development and evaluation of a method to estimate soil moisture status and its influence on gsto for a variety of forest tree species. This DO3SE soil moisture module uses the Penman-Monteith energy balance method to drive water cycling through the soil-plant-atmosphere system and empirical data describing gsto relationships with pre-dawn leaf water status to estimate the biological control of transpiration. We trial four different methods to estimate this biological control of the transpiration stream, which vary from simple methods that relate soil water content or potential directly to gsto, to more complex methods that incorporate hydraulic resistance and plant capacitance that control water flow through the plant system. These methods are evaluated against field data describing a variety of soil water variables, gsto and transpiration data for Norway spruce (Picea abies), Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris), birch (Betula pendula), aspen (Populus tremuloides), beech (Fagus sylvatica) and holm oak (Quercus ilex) collected from ten sites across Europe and North America. Modelled estimates of these variables show consistency with observed data when applying the simple empirical methods, with the timing and magnitude of soil drying events being captured well across all sites and reductions in transpiration with the onset of drought being predicted with reasonable accuracy. The more complex methods, which incorporate hydraulic resistance and plant capacitance, perform less well, with predicted drying cycles consistently underestimating the rate and magnitude of water loss from the soil. A sensitivity analysis showed that model performance was strongly dependent upon the local parameterisation of key model drivers such as the maximum gsto, soil texture, root depth and leaf area index. The results suggest that the simple modelling methods that relate gsto directly to soil water content and potential provide adequate estimates of soil moisture and influence on gsto such that they are suitable to be used to assess the potential risk posed by O3 to forest trees across Europe.

No abstract

The Integrated Carbon Observation System Research Infrastructure aims to provide long-term, continuous observations of sources and sinks of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and water vapour. At ICOS ecosystem stations, the principal technique for measurements of ecosystem-atmosphere exchange of GHGs is the eddy-covariance technique. The establishment and setup of an eddy-covariance tower have to be carefully reasoned to ensure high quality flux measurements being representative of the investigated ecosystem and comparable to measurements at other stations. To fulfill the requirements needed for flux determination with the eddy-covariance technique, variations in GHG concentrations have to be measured at high frequency, simultaneously with the wind velocity, in order to fully capture turbulent fluctuations. This requires the use of high-frequency gas analysers and ultrasonic anemometers. In addition, to analyse flux data with respect to environmental conditions but also to enable corrections in the post-processing procedures, it is necessary to measure additional abiotic variables in close vicinity to the flux measurements. Here we describe the standards the ICOS ecosystem station network has adopted for GHG flux measurements with respect to the setup of instrumentation on towers to maximize measurement precision and accuracy while allowing for flexibility in order to observe specific ecosystem features.

The Meteorological Synthesizing Centre-West (MSC-W) of the European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (EMEP) has been performing model calculations in support of the Convention on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP) for more than 30 yr. The EMEP MSC-W chemical transport model is still one of the key tools within European air pollution policy assessments.

Traditionally, the EMEP model has covered all of Europe with a resolution of about 50 × 50 km², and extending vertically from ground level to the tropopause (100 hPa). The model has undergone substantial development in recent years, and is now applied on scales ranging from local (ca. 5 km grid size) to global (with 1 degree resolution). The model is used to simulate photo-oxidants and both inorganic and organic aerosols.

In 2008 the EMEP model was released for the first time as public domain code, along with all required input data for model runs for one year. Since then, many changes have been made to the model physics, and input data. The second release of the EMEP MSC-W model became available in mid 2011, and a new release is targeted for early 2012. This publication is intended to document this third release of the EMEP MSC-W model. The model formulations are given, along with details of input data-sets which are used, and brief background on some of the choices made in the formulation are presented. The model code itself is available at www.emep.int, along with the data required to run for a full year over Europe