Modelling study of the impact of isoprene and terpene biogenic emissions on European ozone levels

Curci, Gabriele; Beekmann, Matthias; Vautard, Robert; Smiatek, Gerhard; Steinbrecher, R.; Theloke, J.; Friedrich, Rainer

doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2008.02.070

Cited by 164 publications

(116 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…The inverse modeling results suggest that isoprene emission estimates in the eastern part of France (subdomains 2 and 3), in Greece and North Africa (the most sensitive regions for isoprene emissions) should be reduced significantly. The corrections have the same sign as is obtained when comparing our reference emission inventory with the recent NATAIR inventory Curci et al, 2009). A good agreement between the absolute value of the corrections obtained by this study and those suggested by the NATAIR inventory is observed for the French regions.…”

Section: Potential Gain Of Satellite Data Use For Emission Estimates supporting

confidence: 73%

SCIAMACHY formaldehyde observations: constraint for isoprene emission estimates over Europe?

et al. 2009

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Abstract. Formaldehyde (HCHO) is an important intermediate compound in the degradation of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the troposphere. Sources of HCHO are largely dominated by its secondary production from VOC oxidation, methane and isoprene being the main precursors in unpolluted areas. As a result of the moderate lifetime of HCHO, its spatial distribution is determined by reactive hydrocarbon emissions. We focus here on Europe and investigate the influence of the different emissions on HCHO tropospheric columns with the CHIMERE chemical transport model in order to interpret the comparisons between SCIA-MACHY and simulated HCHO columns. Europe was never specifically studied before for these purposes using satellite observations. The bias between measurements and model is less than 20% on average. The differences are discussed according to the errors on the model and the observations and remaining discrepancies are attributed to a misrepresentation of biogenic emissions. This study requires the characterisation of: (1) the model errors and performances concerning formaldehyde. The errors on the HCHO columns, mainly related to chemistry and mixed emission types, are evaluated to 2×10 15 molecule/cm 2 and the model performances evaluated using surface measurements are satisfactory (∼13%); (2) the observation errors that define the needs in spatial and temporal averaging for meaningful comparisons. Using SCIAMACHY observations as constraint for biogenic isoprene emissions in an inverse modelling scheme reduces their uncertainties by about a factor of two in region of intense emissions. The retrieved correction factors for the isoprene emissions range from a factor of 0.15 (North Africa) to a factor of 2 (Poland, the United Kingdom) depending on the regions.

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Section: Potential Gain Of Satellite Data Use For Emission Estimates supporting

confidence: 73%

SCIAMACHY formaldehyde observations: constraint for isoprene emission estimates over Europe?

et al. 2009

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“…They are lower then those reported by Guenther et al (2012) and significantly higher than those of Schurgers et al (2009), which are the lowest among the values published in the literature. MEGAN-MACC monoterpene emissions were compared to regional estimates in China and Europe (Table 5) and are within 30 % of regional totals, except for comparison with Curci et al (2009) whose estimate is about a factor of 2 higher than that of MEGAN-MACC. Discrepancies of monoterpene emissions may arise from different approaches to monoterpene modelling.…”

Section: Global and Regional Totals Of Other Speciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By affecting the concentration of low-level ozone, BVOCs have impact on regional air quality (e.g. Simpson, 1995;Pierce et al, 1998;Curci et al, 2009;Sartelet et al, 2012) and through tropospheric ozone radiative forcing on climate (e.g. Chalita et al, 1996;Brasseur et al, 1998;Gauss et al, 2006).…”

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confidence: 99%

Global data set of biogenic VOC emissions calculated by the MEGAN model over the last 30 years

et al. 2014

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Abstract. The Model of Emissions of Gases and Aerosols from Nature (MEGANv2.1) together with the ModernEra Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) meteorological fields were used to create a global emission data set of biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOC) available on a monthly basis for the time period of 1980-2010. This data set, developed under the Monitoring Atmospheric Composition and Climate project (MACC), is called MEGAN-MACC. The model estimated mean annual total BVOC emission of 760 Tg (C) yr −1 consisting of isoprene (70 %), monoterpenes (11 %), methanol (6 %), acetone (3 %), sesquiterpenes (2.5 %) and other BVOC species each contributing less than 2 %.Several sensitivity model runs were performed to study the impact of different model input and model settings on isoprene estimates and resulted in differences of up to ±17 % of the reference isoprene total. A greater impact was observed for a sensitivity run applying parameterization of soil moisture deficit that led to a 50 % reduction of isoprene emissions on a global scale, most significantly in specific regions of Africa, South America and Australia.MEGAN-MACC estimates are comparable to results of previous studies. More detailed comparison with other isoprene inventories indicated significant spatial and temporal differences between the data sets especially for Australia, Southeast Asia and South America. MEGAN-MACC estimates of isoprene, α-pinene and group of monoterpenes showed a reasonable agreement with surface flux measurements at sites located in tropical forests in the Amazon and Malaysia. The model was able to capture the seasonal variation of isoprene emissions in the Amazon forest.

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“…von Kuhlmann et al, 2004;Pfister et al, 2008;Williams et al, 2009) andregional (e.g. Simpson, 1995;Tao et al, 2003;Roberts et al, 2006;Li et al, 2007;Curci et al, 2009) scales. Sensitivity studies have shown that there is generally an enhancement in the oxidative capacity of the troposphere as a result of an increase in the resident molar mixing ratios of O 3 , and thus OH, due to the presence of BVOCs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying the uncertainty in simulating global tropospheric composition due to the variability in global emission estimates of Biogenic Volatile Organic Compounds

2013

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Abstract. The emission of organic compounds from biogenic processes acts as an important source of trace gases in remote regions away from urban conurbations, and is likely to become more important in future decades due to the further mitigation of anthropogenic emissions that affect air quality and climate forcing. In this study we examine the contribution of biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) towards global tropospheric composition using the global 3-D chemistry transport model TM5 and the recently developed modified CB05 chemical mechanism. By comparing regional BVOC emission estimates we show that biogenic processes act as dominant sources for many regions and exhibit a large variability in the annually and seasonally integrated emission fluxes. By performing sensitivity studies we find that the contribution of BVOC species containing between 1 to 3 carbon atoms has an impact on the resident mixing ratios of tropospheric O3 and CO, accounting for ~2.5% and ~10.8% of the simulated global distribution, respectively. This is approximately a third of the cumulative effect introduced by isoprene and the monoterpenes. By examining an ensemble of 3-D global chemistry transport simulations which adopt different global BVOC emission inventories we determine the associated uncertainty introduced towards simulating the composition of the troposphere for the year 2000. By comparing the model ensemble values against a composite of atmospheric measurements we show that the effects on tropospheric O3 are limited to the lower troposphere (with an uncertainty between −2% to 10%), whereas that for tropospheric CO extends up to the upper troposphere (with an uncertainty of between 10 to 45%). Comparing the mixing ratios for low molecular weight alkenes in TM5 against surface measurements taken in Europe implies that the cumulative emission estimates are too low, regardless of the chosen BVOC inventory. This variability in the global distribution of CO due to BVOC emissions introduces an associated uncertainty in the tropospheric CO burden of 11.4%, which impacts strongly on the oxidative capacity of the troposphere, introducing an uncertainty in the atmospheric lifetime of the greenhouse gas CH4 of ~3.3%. This study thus identifies the necessity of placing further constraints on non-CH4 global biogenic emission estimates in large-scale global atmospheric chemistry models.

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Modelling study of the impact of isoprene and terpene biogenic emissions on European ozone levels

Cited by 164 publications

References 40 publications

SCIAMACHY formaldehyde observations: constraint for isoprene emission estimates over Europe?

SCIAMACHY formaldehyde observations: constraint for isoprene emission estimates over Europe?

Global data set of biogenic VOC emissions calculated by the MEGAN model over the last 30 years

Quantifying the uncertainty in simulating global tropospheric composition due to the variability in global emission estimates of Biogenic Volatile Organic Compounds

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