Asian%20Pollution%20Transport%20to%20the%20United%20States

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Asian Pollution Transport to the United States
Group Project, April 14, 2004

• Amit Murmur, Saewung Kim
• Sangil Lee, Thomas Hanley

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Asian pollution plume transport
- Industrialization of the Asian continent is
expected to be a major driver of future global
change in atmospheric composition (IPCC 2001)
World Resource Inst.(www.wri.org)
World population prospects by UN

• Some of recent studies have shown that Asian
  pollution plume is one of the important factor to
  consider for air quality of U.S. continent.
• This study will briefly review the transport
  mechanism and some of the case studies showing
  that Asian pollution plume reaches in the U.S.
  continent.

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Overview

• Emissions from Asia
• Transport over the pacific ocean
• Impact on the west coast of the USA
• Impact on the east coast of the USA

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Inventory of gaseous and primary aerosol
emissions in Asia in the year 2000
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Inventory domain

• China (breakdown to regions)
• East Asia (countries)
• Southeast Asia (countries)
• South Asia (countries)
• Shipping

TRACE-P study Transport and Chemical Evolution
over the Pacific
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Inventory domain
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Inventory methodology
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Pollutants Included

• SO2
• NOx
• CO2
• CO
• CH4
• NMVOC (broken into 19 subcategories)
• BC
• OC
• NH3
• Mineral Dust (Si, Ca, Al, Ti)

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Sources Included

• Industry
• Residential (bio-fuel combustion from stoves,
  cookers, heaters etc.)
• Transportation (18 categories)
• Power generation
• Agriculture
• Biomass burning (forest, grassland, crop
  residues)
• Other
• Fugitive dust

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Emissions distribution by region
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Emissions distribution by source
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Seasonality in emissions combustion
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Seasonality in emissions non-combustion
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Comparison with USA emissions
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Transport of Asian Air Plume over the Pacific
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Pathway from Asia to North America Continent
EP TOMS Aerosol Index
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Mechanism of Transport
Boundary Layer
Asia
Pacific Ocean
N. America
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Transport and Chemical Evolution over the Pacific
(TRACE-P) Feb Apr 2001

• - TRACE-P field campaign was going on Early
  Spring of 2001 to understand transport mechanisms
  and chemical aging during the transport from Asia
  to pacific region.
• We will review the Liu et al 2003s study about
  the transport pathway of Asian pollution to
  pacific
• Also, we will see some Modeled and Satellite CO
  data that shows transportation from Asia to
  Pacific (Heald et al 2003)

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Lifting processes 1 Frontal Lifting
Due to Low temperature air mass over the Siberia,
in the spring, strong cold front is usually
developed
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Lifting processes 1 Frontal Lifting
Air mass usually rise up over the cold front
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Lifting processes 2 Convective Lifting

• - Due to difference of heat capacity, the
  convection usually is going on near the ocean and
  continent junction system
• Daily and seasonal convection is going on the
  Asian region
• Convection over East Asia varies seasonally, with
  maxima over the maritime continent in winter and
  over southern China in Summer. During
  March-April, convection is largely restricted to
  Southeast Asia and increases in frequency during
  the period

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Lifting processes 3 Orographic Forcing
Beijing
Wind
High Mountain Plateau
Shanghai
Monthly mean large-scale flux at 3-km altitude of
Asian anthropogenic CO in March2001, filled
contour show the terrain elevation (Liu et al
2003)
Orographic forcing plays a major role in
the Large scale lifting of Chinese pollution to FT
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Above mechanisms would be prevailed all around
the year?

• No! most strongly developed Early spring Season
• Winter Lifting to free troposphere
• is suppressed by the Siberian
• High and the Asian
• outflow is directed south
• (due to winter monsoon)
• -Summer Outflow is dominated
• by deep convection
• (summer monsoon)
• (Jacob et al 2003)

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Pathway to the Pacific
Biomass burning
Anthropogenic
Pathway over the Pacific
5 day back trajectory result
Stream line at 500 mb surface
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Chemical Tracer CO distribution
GEOS-CHEM Model
GEOS-CHEM X Kernel
MOPITT
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Asian Dust Transport to the Western United States

• Case Studies for 1998, 2001

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Where are the sources of Dust ?
Biosphere Map
www.lakepowell.net
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Asian Dust, April 2001
Before
After
TOMS Aerosol Index
Dust Storm occurred over Mongolia April 7, 2001
www.lakepowell.net/
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Asian Dust Transport to West Coast of the US
www.lakepowell.net/
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Asian Dust observed at the western US

• Page, Arizona, April 2001

Confined at aloft (6 8 km)

• Washington, April 2001 (Jaffe et al., 2003)

www.lakepowell.net/
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Asian Dust arrived at the western US

• Grand Canyon, Arizona, April 2001

High pressure system moved the Asian dust down to
the lower level reducing the visibility from
unlimited (gt 100 miles) to less than 30 miles.
Significant PM increase observed
www.lakepowell.net/
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Asian Dust observed at the western US1998
Before
After
Large increase of PM affects activities at
regional areas
Husar et al., 2001
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Asian Pollution Transport to the Eastern United
States

• Reported Measurements from Spring of 2001 using
  the AIRMAP Monitoring Network in New England

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Problems with measuring Asian Pollution in the
Eastern US

• Greater distance makes it tougher to trace back
  where air plumes originated
• Air mass also contains pollutants accumulated
  from the Western US, Desert Southeast and Midwest
  as well

• Solutions
• Develop more complicated and higher calculation
  intensive models
• Or
• Focus on extreme, highly traceable cases of high
  pollution from known Asian sources Dust Storms

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Atmospheric Investigation, Regional Modeling,
Analysis and Prediction (AIRMAP) Monitoring
Network

• Four Locations in NH
• Fort Constitution (FC)
• Thompson Farm (TF)
• Castle Springs (CS)
• Mount Washington Observatory (MWO)
• Elevations range from 5m to 1909m

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Focus on Three Major Dust Storm Events

• Tarim Pendi Basin (Western China) and Gobi Desert
  (Northern China and Southern Mongolia)
• April 20th 22nd 2001
• May 1st 5th 2001
• May 10th-12th 2001
• Used Chemical Tracers of Ca2, Ca, CO, NO3-, O3,
  SO42-, and Elemental Carbon (EC)

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Measured Data
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Tracing the Origins of the Dust

• Each dust storm is unique in that the path of
  transport varies.
• Varying concentrations of certain tracers can
  give clues as to which regions the dust clouds
  passed through

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Total Dust Concentrations
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Summary

• Transport from Asia to US is not seasonally
  constant, most active in the spring.
• Despite its distance and coupled effects from
  nearer sources, Asian pollution plumes can be
  transported to the Eastern US and be a
  significant contributor to air pollution.
• It is important to have a clear understanding of
  how these plumes are transported and how certain
  tracers are affected to predict ozone and other
  aerosol concentrations.

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References

• Streets et al., JGR, Vol 108, 2003
• Jacob et al., JGR, Vol 108, 2003
• Liu et al., JGR, Vol 108, 2003
• Heald et al., JGR, Vol 108, 2003
• Jaffe et al., Atm Env, Vol 37, 2003
• Husar et al., JGR, Vol 106, 2001
• Linsey et al., JGR, Vol 109, 2004
• www.lakepowell.net/asiandust

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Questions ?