Air quality and radiative impacts of Arctic shipping emissions in the summertime in northern Norway: from the local to the regional scale

• Published in: Atmospheric chemistry and physics 2016-02, Vol.16 (4), p.2359-2379
• Main Authors: Marelle, Louis, Thomas, Jennie L, Raut, Jean-Christophe, Law, Kathy S, Jalkanen, Jukka-Pekka, Johansson, Lasse, Roiger, Anke, Schlager, Hans, Kim, Jin, Reiter, Anja, Weinzierl, Bernadett
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Access; Aerosols; Air pollution; Air quality; Airborne sensing; Aircraft; Analysis; Arctic climate changes; Arctic climates; Atmospheric chemistry; Black carbon; Boundary layers; Carbon; Climate change; Computer simulation; Cooling; Datasets; Emission measurements; Emissions; Environmental aspects; Environmental Sciences; Evaluation; Global temperature changes; In situ measurement; Lower troposphere; Meteorological research; Modelling; Nitrogen compounds; Nitrogen dioxide; Nitrogen oxides; Numerical weather prediction; Oxides; Ozone; Particulate emissions; Particulate matter; Photochemicals; Plume dispersion; Plumes; Pollution; Pollution sources; Profiles; Quality; Residence time; Resolution; Shipping; Ships; Simulation; Sulfur; Sulfur compounds; Sulfur content; Sulfur dioxide; Sulphur; Sulphur dioxide; Summer; Suspended particulate matter; Traffic models; Troposphere; Vehicle emissions; Weather effects; Weather forecasting
• ISSN: 1680-7324; 1680-7316; 1680-7324
• DOI: 10.5194/acp-16-2359-2016

In this study, we quantify the impacts of shipping pollution on air quality and shortwave radiative effect in northern Norway, using WRF-Chem (Weather Research and Forecasting with chemistry) simulations combined with high-resolution, real-time STEAM2 (Ship Traffic Emissions Assessment Model version 2) shipping emissions. STEAM2 emissions are evaluated using airborne measurements from the ACCESS (Arctic Climate Change, Economy and Society) aircraft campaign, which was conducted in the summer 2012, in two ways. First, emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sulfur dioxide (SO2) are derived for specific ships by combining in situ measurements in ship plumes and FLEXPART-WRF plume dispersion modeling, and these values are compared to STEAM2 emissions for the same ships. Second, regional WRF-Chem runs with and without STEAM2 ship emissions are performed at two different resolutions, 3 km  ×  3 km and 15 km  ×  15 km, and evaluated against measurements along flight tracks and average campaign profiles in the marine boundary layer and lower troposphere. These comparisons show that differences between STEAM2 emissions and calculated emissions can be quite large (−57 to +148 %) for individual ships, but that WRF-Chem simulations using STEAM2 emissions reproduce well the average NOx, SO2 and O3 measured during ACCESS flights. The same WRF-Chem simulations show that the magnitude of NOx and ozone (O3) production from ship emissions at the surface is not very sensitive (