Integrated systems for forecasting urban meteorology, air pollution and population exposure

Abstract

Abstract. Urban air pollution is associated with significant adverse health effects. Model-based abatement strategies are required and developed for the growing urban populations. In the initial development stage, these are focussed on exceedances of air quality standards caused by high short-term pollutant concentrations. Prediction of health effects and implementation of urban air quality information and abatement systems require accurate forecasting of air pollution episodes and population exposure, including modelling of emissions, meteorology, atmospheric dispersion and chemical reaction of pollutants, population mobility, and indoor-outdoor relationship of the pollutants. In the past, these different areas have been treated separately by different models and even institutions. Progress in computer resources and ensuing improvements in numerical weather prediction, air chemistry, and exposure modelling recently allow a unification and integration of the disjunctive models and approaches. The current work presents a novel approach that integrates the latest developments in meteorological, air quality, and population exposure modelling into Urban Air Quality Information and Forecasting Systems (UAQIFS) in the context of the European Union FUMAPEX project. The suggested integrated strategy is demonstrated for examples of the systems in three Nordic cities: Helsinki and Oslo for assessment and forecasting of urban air pollution and Copenhagen for urban emergency preparedness.

Statistical Modeling Approaches for PM10 Prediction in Urban Areas; A Review of 21st-Century Studies

“…Most major European urban areas experience severe shortterm PM10 episodes that are harmful to the environment and human health [31]. The public must be informed when high PM10 concentration conditions are present [5].…”

“…Longterm forecasting is employed for urban planning and design, as well as transportation networks, industrial sites and residential areas management, in order to minimize unacceptable risks to public health [31].…”

Sensitivity of local air quality to the interplay between small- and large-scale circulations: a large-eddy simulation study

“…Urban air pollution is a major concern for urban dwellers and city managers (Baklanov et al, 2007). Typically, urban air pollution is thought of in connection with large industrial areas and megacities with high local emissions (e.g.…”

Application of WRF/Chem-MADRID and WRF/Polyphemus in Europe – Part 1: Model description, evaluation of meteorological predictions, and aerosol–meteorology interactions

“…Offline AQMs are frequently used in ensembles and operational forecasting, inverse/adjoint modeling, and sensitivity simulations, whereas online-coupled AQMs are increasingly used worldwide for cases with important chemistrymeteorology feedbacks (e.g., climate change investigations) and fast changes in the local-scale wind and circulation system (Zhang, 2008). The online-coupled AQMs have been applied over many regions including North America (Jacobson et al, 1996(Jacobson et al, , 1997Grell et al, 2005;Zhang, 2008;Zhang et al, 2010aZhang et al, , b, 2012a, Asia (Tie et al, 2009;Wang et al, 2010;Zhang et al, 2012b;Jiang et al, 2012), and Europe (Baklanov et al, 2007(Baklanov et al, , 2008Zhang et al, 2011a;Forkel et al, 2012;Tuccella et al, 2012), as well as on a global scale (Roeckner et al, 2006), and global through urban scales (Jacobson, 2001;Zhang et al, 2012c). The strengths and limitations of offline-and online-coupled models are summarized in several reviews (e.g., Grell et al, 2004;Zhang, 2008;Baklanov, 2010;Baklanov et al, 2011Baklanov et al, , 2013Kukkonen et al, 2011), among which Zhang (2008) reviewed several onlinecoupled models used over North America and Kukkonen et al (2011) and Baklanov et al (2013) provided a comprehensive review of online-coupled models used over Europe.…”