EPA, NASA, NOAA Conference

Poster Presentations

The following people presented posters at the workshop. Click on their names to see the abstract for their posters.

Joe Vaughn

Title: Evaluation of AIRPACT-2, a numerical, photochemical air quality forecast system for ozone, particulate matter (PM2.5) and selected air toxics in the Pacific Northwest

Authors
Abdullah Mahmud, Joe Vaughan, Jack Chen, Jeremy Avise, Hal Westberg, and Brian Lamb

Laboratory for Atmospheric Research
Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering
Washington State University
Pullman, WA 99164-2910

AIRPACT-2 is an air-quality forecasting system based on the MM5 meteorological model coupled with a dynamic emissions system and the CALMET/CALGRID photochemical grid modeling pair. The system reports forecasts of hourly pollutant levels via the project website for the Pacific Northwest region spanning an area from Vancouver, BC in the north to Salem, OR in the south, and from the Pacific coast in the west to beyond the crest of the Cascade Mountain Range in the east.

This paper presents a performance evaluation of the AIRPACT-2 modeling system results in comparison with observed concentrations of ozone (O3), particulate matter (PM2.5), and some selected air toxics species, including formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, 1,3-butadiene and benzene. The model performance for September 2003 has been analyzed in terms of statistical measures including mean bias, fractional bias, mean error and fractional error. Hourly ozone and particulate matter (PM2.5) observations were collected through a network of surface monitoring stations and provided by the Washington Department of Ecology. Also, observations for selected air toxics species were obtained from the EPA Pilot Cities Program.

Performance statistics for daily maximum 8-hr running-mean ozone for September 2003 show that AIRPACT-2 predicted higher ozone than observed for most receptor sites for a fractional bias (FB) ranging from –21% to 67%. The mean FB was 12%. The overall fractional error (FE) was 22% for daily maximum 8-hr running-mean ozone as compared with a FE of 24% for 1-hr maximum ozone. Locations of observed maxima for daily 1-hr ozone were predominantly at downwind locations relative to the Seattle and Portland metropolitan areas. Thus, high ozone concentrations were observed at Enumclaw, Mt. Rainier and Wishram. AIRPACT-2 predicted maximum ozone in those areas; however, the system also predicted high ozone for North Bend for a few days during September while the observed ozone remained low.

Stefan Falke

Networked Data and Tools for Aerosol Data Analysis
by Stefan Falke and Rudolf Husar
Center for Air Pollution Impact and Trend Analysis (CAPITA)
Washington University in St. Louis

This poster presents a summary of three projects conducted at the Center for Air Pollution Impact and Trend Analysis (CAPITA) involving data processing, data analysis and web information system development.

1) The Fast Aerosol Sensing Tools for Natural Event Tracking (FASTNET) Pilot Project tracks and provides detailed analysis of major natural aerosol events, such as long range transport of forest fire smoke and windblown dust. Relevant near-real time and historical aerosol datasets (surface monitoring, satellites and model simulations) are accessible to analysts through a set of web pages. The FASTNET applications are constructed using DataFed.net, a web-based infrastructure that supports data sharing and processing for collaborative air quality management and atmospheric science research.

2) A fire location data analysis project is examining fire pixel locations from satellites systems and field observations and comparing them with emissions and concentration data. The data and analysis tools are built using DataFed.net.

3) Work in the co-retrieval of surface color and aerosols from SeaWiFS satellite data has generated daily, 1km resolution aerosol optical thickness and surface reflectance images. The surface reflectance data are true color images available from 2000-2003 that can distinguish surface types and are available as input datasets in landscape characterization applications.

Arastoo Pour Biazar
Poster demonstrates results with respect to the use of GOES data assimilation in meteorological and air quality models. The poster is related to the topics of "Applications of landscape characterization" and "Air quality forecasting."

We have used GOES retrieved skin temperatures to recover soil moisture availability and soil heat capacity within MM5 for the Texas Air Quality Study modeling period of August 2000. We have also assimilated satellite retrieved cloud transmissivity in CMAQ for the same period. The poster exhibits the results from these studies.

George Stephens

Operational Smoke Plume Monitoring in NESDIS' Satellite Services Division
Donna McNamara, George Stephens, Mark Ruminski, Tim Kasheta and Jason Taylor

The Hazard Mapping System (HMS), developed and run operationally by NOAA’s Satellite Serices Division (SSD), is a multiplatform remote sensing approach to detecting fires and smoke over the US and adjacent areas of Canada and Mexico. The system utilizes sensors on 7 different NOAA and NASA satellites. Automated detection algorithms are employed for each of the satellites for the fire detects while smoke is delineated by an image analyst. A key component is the quality control performed by an analyst who inspects all available imagery and automated fire detects, deletes those detects that are believed to be false alarms and can add additional fires that the automated routines have not detected.

Areal extent of smoke is outlined using animated visible imagery. Fires that produce detectable smoke are selected for input to a smoke dispersion and transport model, the HYbrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT), developed by NOAA’s Air Resources Laboratory (ARL).

The Washington Volcanic Ash Advisory Center (W-VAAC), a unit within SSD, issues advisories to aircraft on the presence of airborne volcanic ash, a hazard to aviation. The HYSPLIT model is being implemented will be used to predict ash movement and issue forecasts of ash location. The W-VAAC is also evaluating the PUFF volcanic ash dispersion model, developed at the University of Alaska, for operational use.

The GOES Aerosol and Smoke Product (GASP) is an experimental GOES imagery based aerosol optical depth product developed by the NESDIS Office of Research and Applications, being implemented for evaluation by the NESDIS Satellite Analysis Branch for use in smoke and volcanic ash monitoring.

NOAA’s Operational Significant Event Imagery (OSEI) program processes satellite imagery of environmentally significant events, including fire, smoke and volcanic ash, visible in operational satellite data. This imagery is often referred to by fire managers and air quality agencies.

Alan Rush

Correlating seasonal averaged PM2.5 from FRM with MODIS AOD using geographic information system (GIS)

Satellite remote sensing data are another source of information to study air quality, supplementing the in situ monitoring networks. Satellite data have primarily been used to study specific events that affect air quality, such as wildfires, biomass burning, dust storms, and volcanoes. In this exploratory analysis we have used the monthly averaged aerosol optical depth (AOD) product (Level 3) of the MODIS sensor data from the Terra satellite platform to study fine particulate matter throughout the contiguous U.S. While most of the previous quantitative work has focused on hourly correlations between in situ monitors and satellite AOD data, we have attempted to quantify monthly, seasonal, and annual correlations. Our analysis of 2001 monthly data found that correlations do exist, but not throughout the entire study period or area. The best correlations were seen in the northeast and industrial Midwest during the summer months.

Yihua Wu

High Resolution Modeling of Land-Atmosphere Ammonia Exchanges
Yihua Wu and Christa Peters-Lidard, NASA/GSFC/HSB;
John Walker, EPA/APPCD; Donna Schwede, EPA/ASMD

Land-atmosphere ammonia exchanges have significant impacts on atmospheric chemistry, acidification of ecosystems and biodiversity of terrestrial ecosystems, and can cause regional atmospheric pollution, in addition to shifts in nutrient balance and in composition of plant species. Understanding and predicting these impacts is of interest to a large community served by both NASA and the USEPA. Plants can act as both source and sink for atmospheric ammonia (NH3), depending on plant NH3 compensation point. The development of the capability to model bi-directional pollutant fluxes is an important advancement over surface-exchange models currently used by the EPA which are typically uni-directional. Plant stomata are a major pathway for the atmosphere-biosphere ammonia exchanges. Cuticular resistance also has an important effect on ammonia transfer. The objective of this project will be to develop a numerical model to account for these processes. Land cover and its spatial variation significantly impact these computations so high-resolution land surface modeling is also a key aspect of modeling NH3. This project will couple the ammonia model with NASA’s Land Information System (LIS), a global, high-resolution (1km) high performance extension of the NASA Land Data Assimilation System (LDAS).

Sangil Lee

Gaseous and Particulate Emissions from Prescribed Burning in Georgia
Sangil Lee, Karsten Baumann, Donald R. Blake, Armistead Russell

Prescribed burning is widely used for beneficial land management throughout the Southeastern United States. However, prescribed burning does impact air quality by emitting gaseous and particulate pollutants into the atmosphere. Here, we investigate emissions from prescribed burning to better understand how much prescribed burning affects air quality in the region. Gaseous and particulate emissions of prescribed burning were measured during actual prescribed burning events at 3 different locations of Georgia in spring of 2003 and 2004. Evacuated stainless steel canisters were used to capture CO, CO2, CH4, and non-methane hydrocarbons (NMHCs) for two different burning stages (flaming and smoldering). The captured gases were then analyzed, in the lab, using GC/MS. Particulate emissions (Dp < 2.5 m, where Dp is the aerodynamic diameter of the particle) were collected, mostly during the flaming stage, by a custom-designed sampling device that accommodates two filter packs and denuders. The sampled filters and denuders were analyzed by ion chromatography (IC) and thermal optical transmittance (TOT) for water soluble inorganic and carbonaceous species, respectively.

The modified combustion efficiencies (CCO2/ (CCO+CCO2); Ward and Hao, 1992) show clear differences between flaming and smoldering emissions: 91 ± 3 % and 83 ± 6 %, respectively. The emission factor, which is grams of a gas species emitted per gram of fuel burned (EF; Ward and Hardy, 1991), was also calculated for both flaming and smoldering. The emission factor is similar for both flaming and smoldering. For non-methane hydrocarbons (NMHC), ethene (C2H4) has the highest EF followed by ethane (C2H6), propene (C3H6), ethyne (C2H2), benzene (C6H6), and toluene (C7H8). In general, emission factors are higher for smoldering than flaming except for organic nitrates (i.e., CH3NO3, C2H5NO3 etc). This trend becomes much stronger as the carbon contents of the species increase. For particulate emissions, organic carbon (OC) and elemental carbon (EC) are the major species, from 46 up to 66 % and 3 to 5 %, respectively. They are followed by light organic acids (HCOO-, CH3COO-, C2O42-; 1~3 %), K+ (0.3~0.9 %), NO3- (0.4~0.9 %), Cl-(0.4~0.6 %), SO42- (0.2~0.5 %), NH4+ (0.1~0.4 %).

Drew Pilant
Validation of NASA MODIS Leaf Area Index measurements for biogenic emission modeling.

John Creilson

Intercontinental transport of tropospheric ozone: A study of its seasonal variability across the North Atlantic utilizing tropospheric ozone residuals and its relationship to the North Atlantic Oscillation

John Creilsona, Jack Fishman, Amy Wozniaka

Using the empirically-corrected tropospheric ozone residual (TOR) technique, which utilizes coincident observations of total ozone from the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) and stratospheric ozone profiles from the Solar Backscattered Ultraviolet (SBUV) instruments, the seasonal and regional distribution of tropospheric ozone across the North Atlantic from 1979-2000 is examined. Its relationship to the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is also analyzed as a possible transport mechanism across the North Atlantic. Monthly climatologies of tropospheric ozone for five different regions across the North Atlantic exhibit strong seasonality. The correlation between these monthly climatologies of the TOR and ozonesonde profiles at nearby sites in both eastern North America and western Europe are highly significant (R values of +0.98 and +0.96 respectively) and help to validate the use of satellite retrievals of tropospheric ozone. Distinct springtime interannual variability over North Atlantic Region 5 (eastern North Atlantic-western Europe) is particularly evident and exhibits similar variability to the positive phase of the NAO (R=+0.61, ρ=<0.01). Positive phases of the NAO are indicative of a stronger Bermuda-Azores high and a stronger Icelandic low and thus faster more zonal flow across the North Atlantic from west to east. This flow regime appears to be causing the transport of tropospheric ozone across the North Atlantic and onto Europe. The consequence of such transport is the impact on a downwind region’s ability to meet their ozone attainment goals. This link between the positive phase of the NAO and increased tropospheric ozone over Region 5 could be an important tool for prediction of such pollution outbreaks.

R. Bradley Pierce

Assimilation of Satellite Ozone Measurements during the 1999 Southern Oxidants Study: Impact on Continental US Regional Air quality Predictions.

R. Bradley Pierce, Todd Schaack, Jassim A. Al-Saadi, Ivanka Stajner, Hiroo Hayashi, Steven Pawson, Martin D. Mueller, Jack Fishman, Jim Szykman

Global and regional air quality (AQ) is linked through complex interactions between highly heterogeneous surface emissions, local radical chemistry, boundary layer exchange processes, enhancements in background levels of O3 and its precursors, and long range transport. Nesting a regional AQ prediction model within a global data assimilation system (DAS) capable of assimilating satellite chemical measurements is a promising approach for constraining regional AQ predictions. In this paper we present results from a prototype global to regional AQ Forecast/chemical DAS conducted during the US 1999 Southern Oxidation Study (SOS) as part of the NASA Earth Science Enterprise Air Quality Applications Program. Two global chemical DAS ozone analyses are considered. The first comes from the NASA GSFC Finite Volume DAS (FvDAS). FvDAS uses the NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) operational O3 DAS with parameterized chemistry to assimilate SBUV ozone measurements. The second comes from the Regional Air Quality Modeling System (RAQMS). RAQMS is a unified (stratospheric and tropospheric), multi-scale (global to regional) air quality modeling/data assimilation with online chemistry. RAQMS is used evaluate the feasibility of assimilating trajectory mapped solar occultation profile and total column ozone measurements. Comparisons with independent satellite measurements, upper air and surface measurements, show that assimilation of trajectory mapped solar occultation data reduces biases in the lower stratosphere/upper troposphere relative to assimilation of SBUV measurements, and that including online chemistry improves the representation of observed peak amplitudes and diurnal variability at the surface. The potential impact of global ozone analyses on continental US AQ predictions is evaluated by conducting RAQMS nested simulations with and without assimilated boundary conditions. Prototype studies such the SOS study help to identify critical components for future US National Air Quality Forecasting Systems by providing guidance for the development of operational chemical DAS such as FvDAS at GMAO.

Jim Szykman

An Integrated Approach focused on Air Quality using In-situ, Satellite, and Modeled Data in Near-Real-Time – Focused on Air Quality Forecast and the Future of Earth Observation Systems (EOS)

On July 31, 2003, the United Stated hosted 34 nations at the Earth Observations Summit in Washington, D.C., The summit participants discussed plans for achieving the goal of building a comprehensive, coordinated, and sustained earth observation system in the next 10 years, an objective stated by the G-8 Heads of State in June 2003. Such an earth observation system will benefit people around the work, by linking different scales of observations to track global phenomena such at weather, climate change, and air quality around the world. U.S. EPA’s Office of Research and Develop, National Exposure Research Laboratory (ORD/NERL) is an active participant in international and national workgroups to help define a framework and 10-year implementation plan for a Global Earth Observing System of Systems (GEOSS).

Working with our federal partners at NASA and NOAA, ORD/NERL is also leading the way in research and develop to help prototype successful projects that can be used as a framework for building this comprehensive, coordinated, and sustained GEOSS using existing US assets from EPA, NOAA and NASA. Just as Earth Observations from space revolutionized weather forecasting in remote areas in the 1960’s, where clouds and water vapor imagery allowed weather patterns to be identified and monitored, satellite sensors capable of detecting trace constituents can show the “chemical weather” or “pollution weather” over land and water. The potential benefit of such observations for air quality uses such as forecasting and assessment is comparable to the revolution experienced by weather forecasters with the advent of operational weather satellites decades ago. Remote sensing of trace gases and aerosols from space has matured rapidly over the past few years. Current instruments aboard NASA and European Space Agency satellites can provide derived measurements of trace gases and aerosols relating directly to most of the EPA's criteria pollutants (Burrows J., 1999; King et al., 1999; Fishman J., 2000). The retrieval of these derived measurements is now transitioning from scientific research and development to the routine near-real-time status required for use in operational settings.

During September 2003, a team of NASA, NOAA, and EPA researchers demonstrated a prototype project using satellite constituent observations in daily air quality forecasts. Aerosol observations (aerosol optical depth) from the MODIS sensor aboard the NASA EOS-Terra satellite (Kaufman et al., 1997; Tanré et al., 1997) were combined with other near-real-time datasets, including hourly PM2.5 surface measurements and half-hourly wildfire locations, to improve forecaster knowledge of the synoptic-scale (large-scale) distribution and transport of particulate matter across North America. Data products were provided through a web interface for use and evaluation by a group of forecasters working for state and local air management agencies. The data fusion of the data at these different spatial scales, ground and satellite, provided air quality forecasters near-real-time views of large scale particle pollution episodes. This improved their knowledge on potential upwind influences for use in AIRNow next-day particulate matter forecast which started on October 1, 2003. Based on positive response from air quality managers and forecasters, this prototype system has been implemented at the Cooperative Institute for Metrology and Satellite Studies, a joint NASA and NOAA center at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

This project demonstrated the feasibility of bring together data sets at different spatial scales to view the development of large particle pollution episodes in near-real-time. By demonstrating the potential of use of aerosol optical depth data from satellite over the U.S., we showed the capabilities of current sensors to provide potential information on particle pollution episodes around the globe, bring us one step closer to a GEOSS.

Contact Information:
Name: James Szykman
Title: Environmental Engineer
Office/Region/Lab/Center: ORD/NERL/ESD
Phone: 757/864-2709
email: szykman.jim@epa.gov

Mian Chin
2 Posters
Possibilities and challenges in using satellite data for PM2.5 forecasts

Intercontinental transport of aerosols - implication of US air quality

Effects of UHI Mitigation Strategies on Current and Future Urban Meteorology of Atlanta, Georgia

William L. Crosson, William M. Lapenta, Lucie Griggs, Gordon Kenna, Hoyt Johnson III and Scott Dembek

The characterization of land use/land cover is an integral component of
an ongoing air quality modeling project focused on evaluating strategies for reducing the Urban Heat Island (UHI) and improving air quality in Atlanta, Georgia. The 'UHI mitigation strategies' being applied in this project involve 'Cool Communities' principles of high albedo pavement and roofing as well as increased urban tree canopy. These strategies have been developed based on input from local stakeholders and represent conditions that are attainable assuming broad-based support from local government and the community. In order to evaluate the impact of these strategies on urban meteorology (principally near-surface air temperature) and ultimately on air quality, mesoscale model simulations have been performed for the Atlanta region based on land use for 1999 and projected to 2030 using the Spatial Growth Model assuming 'Business as Usual' development. Significant land use change associated with continuing urban sprawl is expected from now until 2030. Model simulations based on identical synoptic forcing are used to evaluate the effects of local land use change on local and regional meteorology. For the 2030 case, results from 'Business as Usual' and 'UHI mitigation strategies' simulations will be compared. The impacts of higher urban albedo and increased tree cover will be examined separately and in combination.

EPA-NASA-NOAA Technical Workshop

Research Triangle Park, NC

Poster Presentations