Leonor Tarrason

Norwegian Institute for Air Research | NILU · Urban Environment and Industry Department

While the burden caused by air pollution in urban areas is well documented, the origin of this pollution and therefore the responsibility of the urban areas in generating this pollution are still a subject of scientific discussion. Source apportionment represents a useful technique to quantify the city's responsibility, but the approaches and appli...

The need for sustainability transitions is widely recognised, along with a concurrent need for the evolution of knowledge systems to inform more effective policy action. Although there are many new policy targets relating to net zero emissions and other sustainability challenges, cities, regional and national governments are struggling to rapidly d...

While the burden caused by air pollution in urban areas is well documented, the origin of this pollution and therefore the responsibility of the urban areas in generating this pollution is still a subject of scientific discussion. Source Apportionment represents a useful technique to quantify the city responsibility but the approaches and applicati...

Urban air pollution is a challenge in several European cities. For most Norwegian cities, the major challenge is the reduction of the NO2 annual mean concentration in order to comply with the limit value in the European Directive 2008/50/EC, but also too many high NO2 hourly values occur during strong inversions in cold winter periods. In Oslo, the...

Information on the origin of pollution constitutes an essential step of air quality management as it helps identifying measures to control air pollution. In this work, we review the most widely used source-apportionment methods for air quality management. Using theoretical and real-case datasets we study the differences among these methods and expl...

This paper presents the first outcomes of the “FAIRMODE pilot” activity, aiming at improving the way in which air quality models are used in the frame of the European “Air Quality Directive”. Member States may use modelling, combined with measurements, to “assess” current levels of air quality and estimate future air quality under different scenari...

This study shows the capabilities of a benchmarking system to identify inconsistencies in emission inventories, and to evaluate the reason behind discrepancies as a mean to improve both bottom-up and downscaled emission inventories. We have compared and evaluated fine scale bottom-up and regional emission inventories (i.e. EC4MACS, TNO_MACC-III, EM...

This paper describes the Δ-Emis tool for emission inventories, recently developed in the framework of Forum for Air Quality Modelling in Europe (FAIRMODE). The Δ-Emis tool consists of a set of indicators and diagrams that support the comparison of bottom-up and top-down emission inventories. Four different comparison methods are proposed: (1) pollu...

This study shows the capabilities of a benchmarking system to identify inconsistencies in emission inventories, and to evaluate the reason behind discrepancies as a mean to improve both bottom-up and downscaled emission inventories. Fine scale bottom-up emission inventories for seven urban areas in Norway are compared with three regional emission i...

This is the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) Interim Annual Assessment report (IAAR) for 2015. The report is elaborated on the basis of non-validated up-to-date observations gathered by the European Environment Agency (EEA) and selected modelled data from the CAMS services. The report characterizes the air quality status in 2015 with...

A methodology is proposed to support the evaluation and comparison of different types of emission inventories. The strengths and weaknesses of the methodology are presented and discussed based on an example. The approach results in a “diamond” diagram useful to flag out anomalous behaviors in the emission inventories and to get insight in possible...

The expedited near-real-time Level 1.5 Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) version 3 products were evaluated against data from the ground-based European Aerosol Research Lidar Network (EARLINET). The statistical framework and results of the three-year evaluation of 48 CALIOP overpasses with ground tracks within a 100 km distan...

The expedited near-real-time Level 1.5 Cloud–Aerosol Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) products were evaluated against data from the ground-based European Aerosol Research Lidar Network (EARLINET). Over a period of three years, lidar data from 48 CALIOP overpasses with ground tracks within a 100 km distance f...

The spatially interpolated European air quality maps used at the EEA are produced by its ETC/ACM on an annual basis through combining observations from AirBase stations as primary data source, with European-wide dispersion modelling information taken from the EMEP model as supplementary data source. The EMEP model is a reference European chemical t...

The potential of future satellite retrievals of NO2 as collected within the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) initative for purposes of European-scale mapping of air quality is assessed. After comparing several existing NO2 datasets from different instruments with respect to their suitability for simulating Sentinel-5 precursor...

Development of a “Background document on the emissions neeeds at local scale”, development of EI questionnaire and specific multi-choice questions depending on methodological approach.

two new programs are presently being linked within GEIA: ECCAD and CIERA. Their common aim is to facilitate access to emissions information. ECCAD (Emissions of chemical Compounds & Compilation of Ancillary Data, http://ether.ipsl. jussieu.fr/eccad) GEIA's new interactive emissions data portal that provides consistent access to global and regional...

Accurate, complete emissions inventories are critical to the understanding and prediction of air quality and climate. Because emissions inventories are prepared for many purposes by a diverse set of institutions and individuals using a variety of methodologies, there is a need to aggregate inventories, disseminate information about emissions, and f...

Air quality modelling at met.no consists of three different systems, all in off-line coupling to our numerical weather prediction models. For emergency purposes we have the Severe Nuclear Accident Program (SNAP) model, a Lagrangian particle model transporting gases, noble gases, particles of different size and density. The modeled processes are: ad...

Recently several regional air quality projects were carried out to support the negotiation under the Clean Air For Europe (CAFE) programme by predicting the impact of emission control policies with an ensemble of models. Within these projects, CITYDELTA and EURODELTA, the fate of air quality at the scale of European cities or that of the European c...

A high resolution (5×5 km2) UK-scale chemistry-transport model (EMEP4UK) is used to study ground-level ozone (O3) during the August 2003 heat-wave. Meteorology is generated by the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model, nudged every six hours with reanalysis data. We focus on SE England, where hourly average O3 reached up to 140 ppb during the h...

Basing upon the experience gained in national operational or pre-operational air quality forecasting activities, as for instance Prév'Air in France or EURAD in Germany, a range of European scale services have been developing in the context of the EU-funded project GEMS (6th FP) and are now brought a step further in the new project MACC (7th FP). Wi...

In recent decades land-based emissions of air pollutants have been substantially reduced over Europe. At the same time emissions from shipping have continued to grow globally. Emissions from international shipping in sea areas surrounding Europe now contribute about 30% of the EU27 emissions of sulphur and NOx and affect ozone levels all over Europ...

European emission trends of nitrogen oxides since 1880 and up to present are presented here and are linked to the evolution of road transport emissions. Road transport has been the dominating source of NOx emissions since 1970, and contributes with 40% to the total emissions in 2005. Five trend regimes have been identified between 1880 and 2005. Th...

European emission trends of nitrogen oxides since 1880 and up to present are presented here and are linked to the evolution of road transport emissions. Road transport has been the dominating source of NO_x emissions since 1970, and contributes with 40% to the total emissions in 2005. Five trend regimes have been identified between 1880 a...

The EMEP Unified model (Simpson et al. 2003; http://www.emep.int) is an Eulerian model that is driven by real-time meteorology. The model is applied over Europe for multiple years on a 50 × 50 km2 grid, with meteorological fields updated every 3 h. While comparisons with measurements have shown generally robust performance of the EMEP model on a Eu...

The goal of the urban scale part of the EMEP4HR project is to study the air quality over Croatian cities, namely Zagreb and Rijeka, at urban scales. Zagreb and Rijeka are two main industrial cities in Croatia so the development of new capability for the assessment of urban air quality in these two cities is very important. In this study we concentr...

The EMEP Unified model, normally applied to the European domain at 50 km horizontal resolution, has been applied to the UK at a finer resolution of 5 km. This new application is called EMEP4UK. The EMEP4UK model is driven by meteorology from the Weather Research and Forecast model (WRF) and emissions from the National Atmospheric Emissions Inventor...

The regional EMEP model has been applied to calculate EC concentrations over Europe for the years 2002-2004 using a new EC emission inventory. The results are compared with measurements from the CARBOSOL and EMEP EC/OC campaigns. The model underestimates EC concentrations by 19% on average, and the spatial correlation is 0.80. For individual sites,...

European critical loads and novel dynamic modelling data have been compiled under the LRTAP Convention by the Coordination Centre for Effects. In 2000 9.8% of the pan-European and 20.8% of the EU25 ecosystem area were at risk of acidification. For eutrophication (nutrient N) the areas at risk were 30.1 and 71.2%, respectively. Dynamic modelling res...

During the last twenty-five years European emission data have been compiled and reported under the Cooperative Programme for Monitoring and Evaluation of the Long-range Transmission of Air Pollutants in Europe (EMEP) as part of the work under the UNECE Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP). This paper presents emission trends...

Long-term ozone simulations from seven regional air quality models, the Unified EMEP model, LOTOS-EUROS, CHIMERE, RCG, MATCH, DEHM and TM5, are intercompared and compared to ozone measurements within the framework of the EuroDelta experiment, designed to assess air quality improvement at the European scale in response to emission reduction scenario...

The CityDelta project Cuvelier et al. [2006. CityDelta: a model intercomparison study to explore the impact of emission reductions in European cities in 2010. Atmospheric Environment] is designed to evaluate the air quality response of several emission abatement scenarios for 2010 at the scale of the European continent, and specifically in the area...

This paper investigates how air quality models applied at different scales (50 and 5 km horizontal resolutions) can predict pollution levels in response to emission control strategies in various cities in Europe. This study, involving five modelling teams and focused on four European cities, has been conducted within the CityDelta project (http://a...

This paper gives an overview of the set up, methodology and the obtained results of the CityDelta (phase 1 and 2) project. In the context of the Clean Air For Europe programme of the European Commission, the CityDelta project was designed to evaluate the impact of emission-reduction strategies on air quality at the European continental scale and in...

The international project Environmental Modelling and Evaluation Programme for Croatia (EMEP4HR) is presented. It is a joint project of Norwegian and Croatian meteorological services, University of Zagreb and Energy Research and Environmental Protection Institute (EKONERG) that started in 2006, and is due to last until 2010. The main purpose of thi...

The international project Environmental Modelling and Evaluation Pro- gramme for Croatia (EMEP4HR) is presented. It is a joint project of Nor- wegian and Croatian meteorological services, University of Zagreb and Energy Research and Environmental Protection Institute (EKONERG) that started in 2006, and is due to last until 2010. The main purpose of...

We examine whether seven state-of-the-art European regional air quality models provide daily ensembles of predicted ozone maxima that encompass observations. Using tools borrowed from the evaluation of ensemble weather forecasting, we analyze statistics of simulated ensembles of ozone daily maxima over an entire summer season. Although the model en...

Recently several Clean Air For Europe (CAFE) regional air quality projects were carried out in order to predict the impact of emission control policies, using an ensemble of models. After describing and intercomparing the skill of these models over long simulation periods, we examine whether this ensemble provides a spread of concentrations of ozon...

The EMEP models have been traditionally used for the analysis of the transport, chemical transformations and deposition of air pollutants at the regional level (EMEP, 2002). The Unifed EMEP Eulerian model has been recently developed to allow a flexible choice of the model domain and model resolution, with size of gridcells ranging from 50×50 km2 an...

Air quality models used as a scientific basis for air pollution strategy development need physically sound and computationally efficient schemes to describe aerosol formation, interaction, and evolution. In this work, we present and evaluate an aerosol dynamics module MONO32, which is designed for use in regional air pollution models. The module pr...

ABSTRACTA 3-dimensional Eulerian model is used to evaluate the influence of North American anthropogenic sulphur emissions over the western coast of Europe. Transport of sulphur across the North Atlantic ocean is simulated on the basis of the actual meteorology for 4 different months during 1982 and 1983. Results show large regional variations and...

Particulate matter (PM) has recently become one of the central topics in air pollution policy development in Europe. Scientific evidences of the impact of atmospheric aerosols on human health and understanding of the importance of long-range transport of particles to the regional PM concentrations have impelled the inclusion of PM within the EMEP1...

Levels of key chemical pollutants in the atmosphere are calculated for present (1996) and future (2010) emission scenarios with the help of a global model (Oslo CTM2), and a regional model (EMEP Eulerian Photochemistry model) centered over Europe. Both models are three-dimensional (3D) Eulerian models and describe atmospheric transport based on the...

Measurements of air and precipitation quality have been carried out within the EMEP programme under the Convention on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP) since 1978. Approximately 100 rural sites are currently in operation. The Meteorological Synthesising Centre-West (MSC-W) operates two EMEP models estimating transboundary fluxes of air...

Exposure to fine particles in the ambient air is recognized as a significant threat to human health. Two pathways contribute to the particle burden in the atmosphere: Fine particles originate from primary emissions, and secondary organic and inorganic particles are formed from the gas phase from the emissions of 'conventional' pollutants such as SO...

This paper deals with the development of a quality analysis/quality control (QA/QC) methodology for modelling studies associated with air quality assessments. Among other benefits, this will allow data quality objectives for model input data to be derived and the importance of policy oriented model applications to be assessed. The procedure for eva...

Results for the summer months April - September 1996 from the MACHO model (Multi-layer Atmospheric CHemistry model, Oslo), a regional scale photo-chemistry model, are presented and compared to measurements. Initial and lateral boundary concentrations are provided by a global CTM (Chemical Tracer Model). As a base run monthly averaged concentrations...

As part of the work of the Economic Commission for Europe of the United Nations Task Force on Emission Inventories, a new set of guidelines has been developed for assessing the emissions of sulphur, nitrogen oxides, NH,, CH,, and nonmethane volatile organic compounds (NMVOC) from biogenic and other natural sources in Europe. This paper gives the ba...

Intercontinental exchange of sulphur in major parts of the northern hemisphere has been studied with a 3-dimensional Eulerian transport model that resolves regional scale variability. Model results for 1988 have been evaluated against daily observations of sulphur dioxide and particulate sulphate in Europe and North America and show that the model...

Two sets of global inventories of anthropogenic emissions of both oxides of sulfur and oxides of nitrogen for circa 1985 have been produced under the umbrella of the Global Emissions Inventory Activity (GEIA) of the International Global Atmospheric Chemistry Program. The two sets of inventories have different temporal, sectoral, and vertical resolu...

A monthly resolved emission budget which aims to reproduce the observed seasonal variation of dimethyl sulphide (DMS) production over the oceans is derived for the North Atlantic Ocean. The monthly cycle of DMS concentrations in seawater and their distribution over the North Atlantic Ocean was determined from a collation of available field measurem...

In April 1990, forty‐two scientists from eight countries attended a workshop at the Bermuda Biological Station for Research to compare field measurements with model estimates of the distribution and cycling of sulfur and nitrogen species in the North Atlantic Ocean's atmosphere. Data sets on horizontal and vertical distributions of sulfur and nitro...

A 3-dimensional Eulerian model is used to evaluate the influence of North American anthropogenic sulphur emissions over the western coast of Europe. Transport of sulphur across the North Atlantic ocean is simulated on the basis of the actual meteorology for 4 different months during 1982 and 1983. Results show large regional variations and indicate...

The implementation of strict measures to control NO x emissions from road transport is demonstrated here to be a main reason for the continued Western European emission reductions. The results indicate that even though the effectiveness of European standards (EURO 1-4) is hampered by a slow vehicle turnover, loopholes in the type-approval testing,...