Relation of Emissions to Air Quality for Photochemical Smog

Abstract

Effective evaluation of air pollution control strategies requires the use of validated and reliable mathematical models that can relate pollutant emissions to atmospheric air quality. The primary objective of this research program has been to develop a fundamental modeling capability to assess the effectiveness of air pollution control measures in reducing smog. An important aspect of the development has been to simplify the preparation of input data and operational use of the resulting model. The system has been designed to be used by air pollution agencies with relatively little experience in atmospheric physics and chemistry. The assumptions commonly employed in model formulations have been evaluated to ensure a valid representation of the physical and chemical processes in the atmosphere. As part of this project a new set of objective analysis procedures has been developed to generate meteorological fields from sparse and discrete surface level observations (Publications 6a and 6b). New parameterizations of turbulent diffusivity and surface interactions have led to a better understanding of the mixing and removal of chemically reacting pollutants. Numerical techniques have been developed to solve the large system of coupled nonlinear partial differential equations which describe the pollutant transport and chemical reactions.