Person:

Klein-Rosenthal, Joyce Ellen

It is anticipated that climate change may impact regional-scale air quality and atmospheric deposition in the coming decades. To simulate the effects of climate change on nitrogen (N) deposition across numerous watersheds in the eastern US, we applied the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies General Circulation Model (GISS-GCM), Fifth Generation Pennsylvania State University/National Center for Atmospheric Research Mesoscale Model (MM5), Sparse Matrix Operator Kernel Emissions (SMOKE) modeling system, and the US Environmental Protection Agency Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) Model. Keeping chemical initial and boundary conditions, land use, and anthropogenic area and point source emissions fixed, this modeling system was applied over five summers (June–August) from 1993 to 1997 and five summers from 2053 to 2057. Over these eastern US watersheds, the modeling system estimated 3–14% increases in summertime N deposition as a result of climate change. This increase is primarily due to the direct effects of climate change on atmospheric conditions and chemistry. Wet N deposition is predicted to increase as a result of increased precipitation, while dry N deposition is predicted to increase as higher surface temperatures favor gas-phase nitric acid to particulate nitrate. The simulated increase suggests that additional reductions in N oxides and/or ammonia may be needed to fully realize the anticipated benefits of planned reduction strategies, including the Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR).

Land use and pollutant emission changes can have significant impacts on air quality, regional climate, and human health. Here we describe a modeling study aimed at quantifying the potential effects of extensive changes in urban land cover in the New York City (NYC), USA metropolitan region on surface meteorology and ozone (O3) concentrations. The SLEUTH land-use change model was used to extrapolate urban land cover over this region from “present-day” (ca. 1990) conditions to a future year (ca. 2050), and these projections were subsequently integrated into meteorological and air quality simulations. The development of the future-year land-use scenario followed the narrative of the “A2” scenario described by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), but was restricted to the greater NYC area. The modeling system consists of the Penn State/NCAR MM5 mesoscale meteorological model; the Sparse Matrix Operator Kernal Emissions processing system; and the US EPA Community Multiscale Air Quality model, and simulations were performed for two 18-day episodes, one near-past and one future. Our results suggest that extensive urban growth in the NYC metropolitan area has the potential to increase afternoon near-surface temperatures by more than 0.6 °C and planetary boundary layer (PBL) heights by more than 150 m, as well as decrease water vapor mixing ratio by more than 0.6 g kg−1, across the NYC metropolitan area, with the areal extent of all of these changes generally coinciding with the area of increased urbanization. On the other hand, the impacts of these land use changes on ozone concentrations are more complex. Simulation results indicate that future changes in urbanization, with emissions held constant, may lead to increases in episode-average O3 levels by about 1–5 ppb, and episode-maximum 8 h O3 levels by more than 6 ppb across much of the NYC area. However, spatial patterns of ozone changes are heterogeneous and also indicate the presence of areas with decreasing ozone concentrations. When anthropogenic emissions were increased to be consistent with the extensive urbanization in the greater NYC area, the O3 levels increased in outer counties of the metropolitan region but decreased in others, including coastal Connecticut and the Long Island Sound area.