%0 journal article %@ 2072-4292 %A Bailey, J., Ramacher, M., Speyer, O., Athanasopoulou, E., Karl, M., Gerasopoulos, E. %D 2023 %J Remote Sensing %N 4 %P 1082 %R doi:10.3390/rs15041082 %T Localizing SDG 11.6.2 via Earth Observation, Modelling Applications, and Harmonised City Definitions: Policy Implications on Addressing Air Pollution %U https://doi.org/10.3390/rs15041082 4 %X While Earth observation (EO) increasingly provides a multitude of solutions to address environmental issues and sustainability from the city to global scale, their operational integration into the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) framework is still falling behind. Within this framework, SDG Indicator 11.6.2 asks countries to report the “annual mean levels of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in cities (population-weighted)”. The official United Nations (UN) methodology entails aggregation into a single, national level value derived from regulatory air quality monitoring networks, which are non-existent or sparse in many countries. EO, including, but not limited to remote sensing, brings forth novel monitoring methods to estimate SDG Indicator 11.6.2 alongside more traditional ones, and allows for comparability and scalability in the face of varying city definitions and monitoring capacities which impact the validity and usefulness of such an indicator. Pursuing a more harmonised global approach, the H2020 SMURBS/ERA-PLANET project provides two EO-driven approaches to deliver the indicator on a more granular level across Europe. The first approach provides both city and national values for SDG Indicator 11.6.2 through exploiting the Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service reanalysis data (0.1° resolution and incorporating in situ and remote sensing data) for PM2.5 values. The SDG Indicator 11.6.2 values are calculated using two objective city definitions—“functional urban area” and “urban centre”—that follow the UN sanctioned Degree of Urbanization concept, and then compared with official indicator values. In the second approach, a high-resolution city-scale chemical transport model ingests satellite-derived data and calculates SDG Indicator 11.6.2 at intra-urban scales. Both novel approaches to calculating SDG Indicator 11.6.2 using EO enable exploration of air pollution hotspots that drive the indicator as well as actual population exposure within cities, which can influence funding allocation and intervention implementation. The approaches are introduced, and their results frame a discussion around interesting policy implications, all with the aim to help move the dial beyond solely reporting on SDGs to designing the pathways to achieve the overarching targets. %0 journal article %@ 2305-6304 %A Lauenburg, M., Karl, M., Matthias, V., Quante, M., Ramacher, M. %D 2021 %J Toxics %N 1 %P 3 %R doi:10.3390/toxics10010003 %T City Scale Modeling of Ultrafine Particles in Urban Areas with Special Focus on Passenger Ferryboat Emission Impact %U https://doi.org/10.3390/toxics10010003 1 %X Air pollution by aerosol particles is mainly monitored as mass concentrations of particulate matter, such as PM10 and PM2.5. However, mass-based measurements are hardly representative for ultrafine particles (UFP), which can only be monitored adequately by particle number (PN) concentrations and are considered particularly harmful to human health. This study examines the dispersion of UFP in Hamburg city center and, in particular, the impact of passenger ferryboats by modeling PN concentrations and compares concentrations to measured values. To this end, emissions inventories and emission size spectra for different emission sectors influencing concentrations in the city center were created, explicitly considering passenger ferryboat traffic as an additional emission source. The city-scale chemical transport model EPISODE-CityChem is applied for the first time to simulate PN concentrations and additionally, observations of total particle number counts are taken at four different sampling sites in the city. Modeled UFP concentrations are in the range of 1.5–3 × 104 cm−3 at ferryboat piers and at the road traffic locations with particle sizes predominantly below 50 nm. Urban background concentrations are at 0.4–1.2 × 104 cm−3 with a predominant particle size in the range 50–100 nm. Ferryboat traffic is a significant source of emissions near the shore along the regular ferry routes. Modeled concentrations show slight differences to measured data, but the model is capable of reproducing the observed spatial variation of UFP concentrations. UFP show strong variations in both space and time, with day-to-day variations mainly controlled by differences in air temperature, wind speed and wind direction. Further model simulations should focus on longer periods of time to better understand the influence of meteorological conditions on UFP dynamics. %0 journal article %@ 2073-4433 %A Ramacher, M.O.P., Kakouri, A., Speyer, O., Feldner, J., Karl, M., Timmermans, R., van der Gon, H.D., Kuenen, J., Gerasopoulos, E., Athanasopoulou, E. %D 2021 %J Atmosphere %N 11 %P 1404 %R doi:10.3390/atmos12111404 %T The UrbEm Hybrid Method to Derive High-Resolution Emissions for City-Scale Air Quality Modeling %U https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos12111404 11 %X As cities are growing in size and complexity, the estimation of air pollution exposure requires a detailed spatial representation of air pollution levels, rather than homogenous fields, provided by global- or regional-scale models. A critical input for city-scale modeling is a timely and spatially resolved emission inventory. Bottom–up approaches to create urban-scale emission inventories can be a demanding and time-consuming task, whereas local emission rates derived from a top–down approach may lack accuracy. In the frame of this study, the UrbEm approach of downscaling gridded emission inventories is developed, investing upon existing, open access, and credible emission data sources. As a proof-of-concept, the regional anthropogenic emissions by Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service (CAMS) are handled with a top–down approach, creating an added-value product of anthropogenic emissions of trace gases and particulate matter for any city (or area) of Europe, at the desired spatial resolution down to 1 km. The disaggregation is based on contemporary proxies for the European area (e.g., Global Human Settlement population data, Urban Atlas 2012, Corine, OpenStreetMap data). The UrbEm approach is realized as a fully automated software tool to produce a detailed mapping of industrial (point), (road-) transport (line), and residential/agricultural/other (area) emission sources. Line sources are of particular value for air quality studies at the urban scale, as they enable explicit treatment of line sources by models capturing among others the street canyon effect and offer an overall better representation of the critical road transport sector. The UrbEm approach is an efficient solution for such studies and constitutes a fully credible option in case high-resolution emission inventories do not exist for a city (or area) of interest. The validity of UrbEm is examined through the evaluation of high-resolution air pollution predictions over Athens and Hamburg against in situ measurements. In addition to a better spatial representation of emission sources and especially hotspots, the air quality modeling results show that UrbEm outputs, when compared to a uniform spatial disaggregation, have an impact on NO2 predictions up to 70% for urban regions with complex topographies, which corresponds to a big improvement of model accuracy (FAC2 > 0.5), especially at the source-impacted sites. %0 conference paper %@ %A Bieser, J., Ramacher, M. %D 2021 %J Air Pollution Modeling and its Application XXVII. ITM 2019. Springer Proceedings in Complexity %P 119-123 %R doi:10.1007/978-3-662-63760-9_18 %T Multi-compartment Chemistry Transport Models %U https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-63760-9_18 %X There exists a large range of pollutants of global concern for whom the ocean is a key part in their environmental cycle. Namely, mercury (Hg) and several persistent organic pollutants (POPs) which are subject to international treaties (e.g. Minamata Convention, Stockholm Convention) are actively exchanged between atmosphere and ocean and subsequently accumulated in the marine food web. Thus, modeling their environmental fate requires a numerical representation of atmospheric and marine physics and chemistry. Additionally, in the marine environment interactions with biota and detritus are an important factor leading to a multi-disciplinary biogeochemical research field involving chemistry, meteorology, oceanography, and biology. However, the chemistry transport modeling research community is still virtually limited to atmospheric transport and transformation of pollutants. The ocean is typically treated as a boundary condition and only few coupled hydrodynamic models have been developed so far. %0 journal article %@ 1680-7316 %A Matthias, V., Quante, M., Arndt, J., Badeke, R., Fink, L., Petrik, R., Feldner, J., Schwarzkopf, D., Link, E.-M., Ramacher, M., Wedemann, R. %D 2021 %J Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics %N 18 %P 13931-13971 %R doi:10.5194/acp-21-13931-2021 %T The role of emission reductions and the meteorological situation for air quality improvements during the COVID-19 lockdown period in central Europe %U https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-13931-2021 18 %X The lockdown can be seen as a big experiment about air quality improvements that can be achieved through drastic traffic emission reductions. From this investigation, it can be concluded that NO2 concentrations can be largely reduced, but effects on annual average values are small when the measures last only a few weeks. Secondary pollutants like ozone and PM2.5 depend more strongly on weather conditions and show a limited response to emission changes in single sectors. %0 journal article %@ %A Quante, M., Karl, M., Matthias, V., Moldanova, J., Ramacher, M. %D 2021 %J EM : Air & Waste Management Association's magazine for environmental managers %N 2 %T Shipping in the Baltic Sea: Assessment of Current and Future Air Quality Implications %U 2 %X Air quality modeling studies reveal that shipping currently contributes considerably to degraded air quality in the coastal areas of the Baltic Sea region. Future scenarios highlight the importance of implementing a Nitrogen Emission Control Area (NECA) to improve the situation. %0 conference paper %@ %A Ramacher, M., Karl, M., Feldner, J., Bieser, J. %D 2021 %J Air Pollution Modeling and its Application XXVII. ITM 2019 %P 241-248 %R doi:10.1007/978-3-662-63760-9_34 %T The Impact of BVOC Emissions from Urban Trees on O3 Production in Urban Areas Under Heat-Period Conditions %U https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-63760-9_34 %X Heat-periods in summer occurred more frequently in this decade and affected the well-being of citizens in several ways. One effect of heat-periods is a higher photochemical ozone (O3) production rate, which leads to higher O3 concentrations. Strategies to influence urban climate and air pollution more often include urban trees. A side effect of urban trees is the emission of biogenic VOCs (BVOCs), which are participating in urban O3 production. In this study, we investigate the effect of urban tree BVOCs during heat-period conditions on O3 formation using an integrated urban-scale biogenic emissions and chemistry transport model chain. To demonstrate the possibility of investigating the effect of urban trees on O3 production under heat-period conditions, we performed simulations in the densely populated Rhein-Ruhr area (DE) in July 2018. The results show impacts of up to 4% higher averaged maximum daily 8 h mean (MDA8) O3 concentrations due to local isoprene emissions and up to additional 15% higher MDA8 O3 values when decreasing NOx emissions from traffic and increasing urban tree emissions. In general, the relevance of biogenic emissions is expected to increase in future due to higher frequency of heat-period events related to climate change and due to the decreasing trend of anthropogenic emissions in response to current legislation. Therefore, the established model chain can be a valuable tool for urban planning. %0 doctoral thesis %@ %A Ramacher, M. %D 2020 %J %T Development of an urban dynamic exposure model - Quantifying the impact of anthropogenic atmospheric emissions on urban populations in Europe %U %X %0 journal article %@ 1991-959x %A Hamer, P.D., Walker, S.-E., Sousa-Santos, G., Vogt, M., Vo-Thanh, D., Lopez-Aparicio, S., Schneider, P., Ramacher, M., Karl, M. %D 2020 %J Geoscientific Model Development %N 9 %P 4323-4353 %R doi:10.5194/gmd-13-4323-2020 %T The urban dispersion model EPISODE v10.0 – Part 1: An Eulerian and sub-grid-scale air quality model and its application in Nordic winter conditions %U https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-4323-2020 9 %X This paper describes the Eulerian urban dispersion model EPISODE. EPISODE was developed to address a need for an urban air quality model in support of policy, planning, and air quality management in the Nordic, specifically Norwegian, setting. It can be used for the calculation of a variety of airborne pollutant concentrations, but we focus here on the implementation and application of the model for NO2 pollution. EPISODE consists of an Eulerian 3D grid model with embedded sub-grid dispersion models (e.g. a Gaussian plume model) for dispersion of pollution from line (i.e. roads) and point sources (e.g. chimney stacks). It considers the atmospheric processes advection, diffusion, and an NO2 photochemistry represented using the photostationary steady-state approximation for NO2. EPISODE calculates hourly air concentrations representative of the grids and at receptor points. The latter allow EPISODE to estimate concentrations representative of the levels experienced by the population and to estimate their exposure. This methodological framework makes it suitable for simulating NO2 concentrations at fine-scale resolution (<100 m) in Nordic environments. The model can be run in an offline nested mode using output concentrations from a global or regional chemical transport model and forced by meteorology from an external numerical weather prediction model; it also can be driven by meteorological observations. We give a full description of the overall model function and its individual components. We then present a case study for six Norwegian cities whereby we simulate NO2 pollution for the entire year of 2015. The model is evaluated against in situ observations for the entire year and for specific episodes of enhanced pollution during winter. We evaluate the model performance using the FAIRMODE DELTA Tool that utilises traditional statistical metrics, e.g. root mean square error (RMSE), Pearson correlation R, and bias, along with some specialised tests for air quality model evaluation. We find that EPISODE attains the DELTA Tool model quality objective in all of the stations we evaluate against. Further, the other statistical evaluations show adequate model performance but that the model scores greatly improved correlations during winter and autumn compared to the summer. We attribute this to the use of the photostationary steady-state scheme for NO2, which should perform best in the absence of local ozone photochemical production. Oslo does not comply with the NO2 annual limit set in the 2008/50/EC directive (AQD). NO2 pollution episodes with the highest NO2 concentrations, which lead to the occurrence of exceedances of the AQD hourly limit for NO2, occur primarily in the winter and autumn in Oslo, so this strongly supports the use of EPISODE for application to these wintertime events. Overall, we conclude that the model is suitable for an assessment of annual mean NO2 concentrations and also for the study of hourly NO2 concentrations in the Nordic winter and autumn environment. Further, in this work we conclude that it is suitable for a range of policy applications specific to NO2 that include pollution episode analysis, evaluation of seasonal statistics, policy and planning support, and air quality management. Lastly, we identify a series of model developments specifically designed to address the limitations of the current model assumptions. Part 2 of this two-part paper discusses the CityChem extension to EPISODE, which includes a number of implementations such as a more comprehensive photochemical scheme suitable for describing more chemical species and a more diverse range of photochemical environments, as well as a more advanced treatment of the sub-grid dispersion. %0 journal article %@ 1660-4601 %A Karl, M., Pirjola, L., Karppinen, A., Jalkanen, J., Ramacher, M., Kukkonen, J. %D 2020 %J International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health %N 3 %P 777 %R doi:10.3390/ijerph17030777 %T Modeling of the Concentrations of Ultrafine Particles in the Plumes of Ships in the Vicinity of Major Harbors %U https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17030777 3 %X Marine traffic in harbors can be responsible for significant atmospheric concentrations of ultrafine particles (UFPs), which have widely recognized negative effects on human health. It is therefore essential to model and measure the time evolution of the number size distributions and chemical composition of UFPs in ship exhaust to assess the resulting exposure in the vicinity of shipping routes. In this study, a sequential modelling chain was developed and applied, in combination with the data measured and collected in major harbor areas in the cities of Helsinki and Turku in Finland, during winter and summer in 2010–2011. The models described ship emissions, atmospheric dispersion, and aerosol dynamics, complemented with a time–microenvironment–activity model to estimate the short-term UFP exposure. We estimated the dilution ratio during the initial fast expansion of the exhaust plume to be approximately equal to eight. This dispersion regime resulted in a fully formed nucleation mode (denoted as Nuc2). Different selected modelling assumptions about the chemical composition of Nuc2 did not have an effect on the formation of nucleation mode particles. Aerosol model simulations of the dispersing ship plume also revealed a partially formed nucleation mode (Nuc1; peaking at 1.5 nm), consisting of freshly nucleated sulfate particles and condensed organics that were produced within the first few seconds. However, subsequent growth of the new particles was limited, due to efficient scavenging by the larger particles originating from the ship exhaust. The transport of UFPs downwind of the ship track increased the hourly mean UFP concentrations in the neighboring residential areas by a factor of two or more up to a distance of 3600 m, compared with the corresponding UFP concentrations in the urban background. The substantially increased UFP concentrations due to ship traffic significantly affected the daily mean exposures in residential areas located in the vicinity of the harbors. %0 journal article %@ 1680-7316 %A Tang, L., Ramacher, M.O.P., Moldanova, J., Matthias, V., Karl, M., Johansson, L., Jalkanen, J.-P., Yaramenka, K., Aulinger, A., Gustafsson, M. %D 2020 %J Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics %N 12 %P 7509-7530 %R doi:10.5194/acp-20-7509-2020 %T The impact of ship emissions on air quality and human health in the Gothenburg area – Part 1: 2012 emissions %U https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-7509-2020 12 %X Based on the modelled local and regional shipping contributions, the health effects of PM2.5, NO2 and ozone were assessed using the ALPHA-RiskPoll (ARP) model. An effect of the shipping-associated PM2.5 exposure in the modelled area was a mean decrease in the life expectancy by 0.015 years per person. The relative contribution of local shipping to the impact of total PM2.5 was 2.2 %, which can be compared to the 5.3 % contribution from local road traffic. The relative contribution of the regional shipping was 10.3 %. The mortalities due to the exposure to NO2 associated with shipping were calculated to be 2.6 premature deaths yr−1. The relative contribution of local and regional shipping to the total exposure to NO2 in the reference simulation was 14 % and 21 %, respectively. The shipping-related ozone exposures were due to the NO titration effect leading to a negative number of premature deaths. Our study shows that overall health impacts of regional shipping can be more significant than those of local shipping, emphasizing that abatement policy options on city-scale air pollution require close cooperation across governance levels. Our findings indicate that the strengthened Sulphur Emission Control Areas (SECAs) fuel sulphur limit from 1 % to 0.1 % in 2015, leading to a strong decrease in the formation of secondary particulate matter on a regional scale was an important step in improving the air quality in the city. %0 journal article %@ 1660-4601 %A Ramacher, M.O.P., Karl, M. %D 2020 %J International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health %N 6 %P 2099 %R doi:10.3390/ijerph17062099 %T Integrating Modes of Transport in a Dynamic Modelling Approach to Evaluate Population Exposure to Ambient NO2 and PM2.5 Pollution in Urban Areas %U https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17062099 6 %X To evaluate the effectiveness of alternative policies and measures to reduce air pollution effects on urban citizen’s health, population exposure assessments are needed. Due to road traffic emissions being a major source of emissions and exposure in European cities, it is necessary to account for differentiated transport environments in population dynamics for exposure studies. In this study, we applied a modelling system to evaluate population exposure in the urban area of Hamburg in 2016. The modeling system consists of an urban-scale chemistry transport model to account for ambient air pollutant concentrations and a dynamic time-microenvironment-activity (TMA) approach, which accounts for population dynamics in different environments as well as for infiltration of outdoor to indoor air pollution. We integrated different modes of transport in the TMA approach to improve population exposure assessments in transport environments. The newly developed approach reports 12% more total exposure to NO2 and 19% more to PM2.5 compared with exposure estimates based on residential addresses. During the time people spend in different transport environments, the in-car environment contributes with 40% and 33% to the annual sum of exposure to NO2 and PM2.5, in the walking environment with 26% and 30%, in the cycling environment with 15% and 17% and other environments (buses, subway, suburban, and regional trains) with less than 10% respectively. The relative contribution of road traffic emissions to population exposure is highest in the in-car environment (57% for NO2 and 15% for PM2.5). Results for population-weighted exposure revealed exposure to PM2.5 concentrations above the WHO AQG limit value in the cycling environment. Uncertainties for the exposure contributions arising from emissions and infiltration from outdoor to indoor pollutant concentrations range from −12% to +7% for NO2 and PM2.5. The developed “dynamic transport approach” is integrated in a computationally efficient exposure model, which is generally applicable in European urban areas. The presented methodology is promoted for use in urban mobility planning, e.g., to investigate on policy-driven changes in modal split and their combined effect on emissions, population activity and population exposure. %0 journal article %@ 1680-7316 %A Ramacher, M., Tang, L., Moldanova, J., Matthias, V., Karl, M., Fridell, E., Johansson, L. %D 2020 %J Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics %N 17 %P 10667-10686 %R doi:10.5194/acp-20-10667-2020 %T The impact of ship emissions on air quality and human health in the Gothenburg area – Part II: Scenarios for 2040 %U https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-10667-2020 17 %X The simulated concentrations of NO2 and PM2.5 in future scenarios for the year 2040 are in general very low with up to 4 ppb for NO2 and up to 3.5 µg m−3 PM2.5 in the urban areas which are not close to the port area. From 2012 the simulated overall exposure to PM2.5 decreased by approximately 30 % in simulated future scenarios; for NO2 the decrease was over 60 %. The simulated concentrations of O3 increased from the year 2012 to 2040 by about 20 %. In general, the contributions of local shipping emissions in 2040 focus on the harbour area but to some extent also influence the rest of the city domain. The simulated impact of onshore electricity implementation for shipping in 2040 shows reductions for NO2 in the port of up to 30 %, while increasing O3 of up to 3 %. Implementation of onshore electricity for ships at berth leads to additional local reduction potentials of up to 3 % for PM2.5 and 12 % for SO2 in the port area. All future scenarios show substantial decreases in population-weighted exposure and health-effect impacts. %0 journal article %@ 1361-9209 %A Matthias, V., Bieser, J., Mocanu, T., Pregger, T., Quante, M., Ramacher, M., Seum, S., Winkler, C. %D 2020 %J Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment %P 102536 %R doi:10.1016/j.trd.2020.102536 %T Modelling road transport emissions in Germany – Current day situation and scenarios for 2040 %U https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2020.102536 %X In the German project Traffic Development and the Environment an advanced model chain was built up that includes traffic models, fleet composition developments, new driving technologies, and emission factors in order to produce spatio-temporal emission distributions for use in atmospheric chemistry transport models. This novel model chain was first used to calculate current day traffic emissions in Germany and then to develop consistent future scenarios for 2040. In all scenarios, NOx emissions from traffic decrease by approximately 80% while PM emissions show a lower reduction. The scenarios Free Play, which is based on a free market economics logic, and Regulated Shift, which considers stricter environmental regulations, represent large differences in traffic emissions. NOx emissions will be 32% lower and PM emissions 13% lower in the Regulated Shift scenario compared to the Free Play. The data can be combined with other anthropogenic emissions for investigating air quality with chemistry transport models. %0 conference paper %@ 2213-8684 %A Bieser J., Ramacher M., Prank M., Solazzo E., Uppstu A. %D 2020 %J Air Pollution Modeling and its Application XXVI. ITM 2018. Springer Proceedings in Complexity %P 309-315 %R doi:10.1007/978-3-030-22055-6_49 %T Multi Model Study on the Impact of Emissions on CTMs %U https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22055-6_49 %X Emission data are a key driver and a major source of uncertainty to atmospheric chemistry transport models. As part of the international model-intercomparison study AQMEII chemistry transport models (CTMs) with harmonized input data have been used to evaluate the impact of emission datasets on different species and compare it to the effect of meteorology and parametrization of the CTM. %0 conference paper %@ 2213-8684 %A Ramacher, M., Karl, M., Aulinger, A., Bieser, J. %D 2020 %J Air Pollution Modeling and its Application XXVI. ITM 2018. Springer Proceedings in Complexity %P 177-183 %R doi:10.1007/978-3-030-22055-6_28 %T Population Exposure to Emissions from Industry, Traffic, Shipping and Residential Heating in the Urban Area of Hamburg %U https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22055-6_28 %X This study investigates the contributions of four major emission sources—industry, road traffic, shipping and residential heating—on air quality in the harbour city of Hamburg using a local-scale modelling system comprising meteorological, emissions and chemical transport models. Moreover, human exposure with regard to the overall air quality and the emissions sources under investigation was calculated. Based on detailed emission inventories and an evaluated CTM system, this study identifies road traffic as a major source of PM2.5 pollution and exposure during the entire year and in almost all populated areas in Hamburg. Overall, the highest contributor to PM2.5 concentrations is the industrial sector focussing on less populated areas. %0 book part %@ %A Quante, M., Matthias, V., Ramacher, M. %D 2019 %J Warnsignal Klima: Die Städte : wissenschaftliche Fakten %P 120-127 %T Städtische Luftqualität im Klimawandel %U %X For particulate matter the overall effect of climate change is more complex to disentangle. In regions with a projected increase in precipitation amounts an increase in wet deposition is expected. Adaptation measures by employing urban trees should be aware of possible additional BVOC emissions and negative effects on ventilation. %0 conference lecture %@ %A Ramacher, M.O.P., Matthias, V., Karl, M., Aulinger, A., Bieser, J., Quante, M. %D 2019 %J Shipping and the Environment 2019 %T Contributions of shipping and traffic emissions to city scale NO2 and PM2.5 exposure in Hamburg %U %X %0 journal article %@ 1991-959X %A Karl, M., Walker, S.-E., Solberg, S., Ramacher, M.O.P. %D 2019 %J Geoscientific Model Development %P 3357-3399 %R doi:10.5194/gmd-12-3357-2019 %T The Eulerian urban dispersion model EPISODE – Part 2: Extensions to the source dispersion and photochemistry for EPISODE–CityChem v1.2 and its application to the city of Hamburg %U https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-3357-2019 %X This paper describes the CityChem extension of the Eulerian urban dispersion model EPISODE. The development of the CityChem extension was driven by the need to apply the model in lower latitude cities with higher insolation than in northern European cities. The CityChem extension offers a more advanced treatment of the photochemistry in urban areas and entails specific developments within the sub-grid components for a more accurate representation of the dispersion in the proximity of urban emission sources. The WMPP (WORM Meteorological Pre-Processor) is used in the point source sub-grid model to calculate the wind speed at plume height. The simplified street canyon model (SSCM) is used in the line source sub-grid model to calculate pollutant dispersion in street canyons. The EPISODE-CityChem model integrates the CityChem extension in EPISODE, with the capability of simulating photochemistry and dispersion of multiple reactive pollutants within urban areas. The main focus of the model is the simulation of the complex atmospheric chemistry involved in the photochemical production of ozone in urban areas. EPISODE-CityChem was evaluated with a series of tests and with a first application to the air quality situation in the city of Hamburg, Germany. A performance analysis with the FAIRMODE DELTA Tool for the air quality in Hamburg showed that the model fulfils the model performance objectives for NO2 (hourly), O3 (daily max. of the 8-h running mean) and PM10 (daily mean) set forth in the Air Quality Directive, qualifying the model for use in policy applications. Observed levels of annual mean ozone at the five urban background stations in Hamburg are captured by the model within 15%. Envisaged applications of the EPISODE-CityChem model are urban air quality studies, emission control scenarios in relation to traffic restrictions and the source attribution of sector-specific emissions to observed levels of air pollutants at urban monitoring stations. %0 journal article %@ 1680-7316 %A Ramacher, M.O.P., Kall, M., Bieser, J., Jalkanen, J.-P., Johansson, L. %D 2019 %J Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics %N 14 %P 9153-9179 %R doi:10.5194/acp-19-9153-2019 %T Urban population exposure to NOx emissions from local shipping in three Baltic Sea harbour cities – A generic approach %U https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-9153-2019 14 %X Ship emissions in ports can have a significant impact on local air quality (AQ), population exposure, and therefore human health in harbour cities. We determined the impact of shipping emissions on local AQ and population exposure in the Baltic Sea harbour cities Rostock (Germany), Riga (Latvia) and the urban agglomeration of Gdansk-Gdynia (Poland) for 2012. An urban AQ study was performed using a global-to-local Chemistry Transport Model chain with the EPISODE-CityChem model for the urban scale. We simulated NO2, O3 and PM concentrations in 2012 with the aim to determine the impact of local shipping activities to outdoor population exposure in Baltic Sea harbour cities. Based on simulated concentrations, dynamic population exposure on outdoor NO2 concentrations for all urban domains was calculated. We developed and used a novel generic approach to model dynamic population activity in different microenvironments based on publicly available data. The results of the new approach are hourly microenvironment-specific population grids with a spatial resolution of 100 × 100 m2. We multiplied these grids with surface pollutant concentration fields of the same resolution to calculate total population exposure. We found that the local shipping impact on NO2 concentrations is significant, contributing with 22 %, 11 %, and 16 % to the total annually averaged grid mean concentration for Rostock, Riga and Gdansk-Gdynia, respectively. For PM2.5, the contribution of shipping is substantially lower with 1–3 %. When it comes to microenvironment-specific exposure to annual NO2, the highest exposure to NO2 from all emission sources was found in the home environment (54–59 %). Emissions from shipping have a high impact on NO2 exposure in the port area (50–80 %) while the influence in home, work and other environments is lower on average (3–14 %), but still with high impacts close to the port areas and downwind of them. Besides this, the newly developed generic approach allows for dynamic population exposure calculations in European cities without the necessity of individually measured data or large-scale surveys on population data. %0 conference paper %@ 2213-8684 %A Ramacher, M., Karl, M., Aulinger, A., Bieser, J., Matthias, V., Quante, M. %D 2018 %J Air Pollution Modeling and its Application XXV. ITM 2016. Springer Proceedings in Complexity %P 309-316 %R doi:10.1007/978-3-319-57645-9_49 %T The Impact of Emissions from Ships in Ports on Regional and Urban Scale Air Quality %U https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57645-9_49 %X Ships emit considerable amounts of pollutants, not only when sailing, but also during their stay in ports. This is of particular importance for harbor cities because ship emissions contribute to regional and urban air pollution. However, only few studies investigated the specific effect of shipping emissions on air pollution in cities. It is difficult to estimate the emissions from ships in harbors only from the technical specifications of the ships because their activities during their stay at berth differ a lot and are not well known. A multi-level approach was used to calculate the total emissions of ship activities in the port of Hamburg. The resulting emission inventory served as input for the Chemical Transport Model systems TAPM and CityChem. To investigate the impact of ship emissions on air pollution in the Hamburg area two different model runs for January and July 2013 were performed; one model run including land-based emissions and the ship emissions and a model run just including the land-based emissions. The modeling outcomes are compared with air quality data and resulted in dispersion maps of pollutants (PM2.5 and NO2) from harbor related ships in the Hamburg metropolitan area. On the urban scale, the highest concentrations are located in the port area of Hamburg. The monthly averaged NO2 concentrations mostly remain within the harbor area and the southwest region of Hamburg. The regional background concentrations in the metropolitan area are only slightly increased by shipping emissions from the harbor. %0 book part %@ %A Matthias, V., Ramacher, M., Quante, M. %D 2018 %J Nachhaltige StadtGesundheit Hamburg - Bestandsaufnahme und Perspektiven %P 378-388 %T Luftqualität in Hamburg %U