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AQAST Newsletter, October 2013

Welcome to the October 2013 Newsletter of the NASA Air Quality Applied Sciences Team (AQAST). AQAST is a team of atmospheric scientists serving air quality management needs through the use of Earth Science data and tools. We conduct a wide range of projects in partnership with air quality agencies at the local, state, regional, and national levels.

This newsletter keeps you up to date on AQAST activities. The AQAST website has more comprehensive information. Also follow us on Twitter at @NASA_AQAST. To inquire about specific projects or request assistance please contact any AQAST member, team leader Daniel Jacob, or team deputy leader Tracey Holloway.

This newsletter was produced by Daniel Jacob (AQAST leader) and Bob Yantosca (AQAST webmaster). Subscribe/unsubscribe by email to Bob Yantosca.. Access previous newsletters here.

AQAST Semiannual Meetings

AQAST meetings are held on a semiannual schedule and bring together team members, air quality managers, and research and applications partners. Our last meeting was held on June 4-6 at the University of Maryland and you can access the agenda and presentations from that meeting here.

6th AQAST Meeting (AQAST6): January 15-17, 2014 at Rice University

The next AQAST meeting (AQAST6) will be held January 15-17, 2014 (Wednesday-Friday) at Rice University in Houston, hosted by AQAST member Dan Cohan. The meeting is free and open to the public. Air quality managers are especially encouraged to participate. Go to the meeting website for more information and to register. Indicate when you register if you would like to give a presentation. We look forward to seeing you in Houston!

AQAST Highlights

AQAST in the news

The recently published Ellis et al. AQAST paper on excessive nitrogen deposition in US national parks received a lot of media attention including this piece in the Los Angeles Times. Read the press release.

NASA training course

AQAST member Yang Liu co-taught a NASA training course for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District in Santa Clara, CA (September 10-12, 2013). Topics included NASA aerosol products, and NASA / NOAA smoke/fire and products and their applications to air quality monitoring.

Effect of climate change on fires and air quality

AQAST member Loretta Mickley has received a lot of media attention for her recent work on how future climate change will affect wildfires in the US with implications for air quality. Read Mickley's blog on the topic with links to publications, media stories, graphics, and more.

AQAST Team Members Participate in Air Quality Conference

AQAST Team Member Dick McNider of the University of Alabama in Huntsville gave a keynote speech on the role of the physical atmosphere in air quality decision making at the Traversing New Terrain Meteorology and Air Quality Conference held at the University Of California Davis Sept -10-12, 2013. The purpose of the conference was to bring physical atmosphere modelers both from the air quality community and other areas such as weather forecasting, fire forecasting and climate to examine issues and possible improvements to the physical atmosphere related to air quality.

One new area examined by McNider in his opening talk was the evidence of too much mixing in nighttime stable boundary layers is reducing the decoupling and strength of associated inertial low level jets and shear in the residual layer between the surface and the previous day’s boundary layer height. Using long range dispersion results it was shown that such under-prediction of the decoupling can dramatically change the transport and spread of urban and power plant plumes into rural areas. It was hypothesized that part of the under-prediction in modeled rural NO2 columns compared to satellite column NO2 may be due to model under-estimates of NOy export from urban areas because of the under-estimate of the nighttime decoupling.

Another AQAST Team member, Brad Pierce of NOAA, served on the Program Committee and organized the “Data Assimilation, Adjoints, and Inverse Modeling “ session, which focused on techniques of bring satellite and ground based air quality observations into models and to decision making by air quality agencies.

New AQAST publications (with links)

PM trends seen from space

Hu, X., L. A. Waller, A. Lyapustin, Y. Wang, and Y. Liu (2013), 10 yr spatial and temporal trends of PM2.5 concentrations in the southeastern US estimated using high-resolution satellite data, Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., 13(10), 25617-25648, doi:10.5194/acpd-13-25617-2013. Article

NOx emission trends seen from space

Duncan, B., Y. Yoshida, B. de Foy, L. Lamsal, D. Streets, Z. Lu, K. Pickering, and N. Krotkov, The observed response of Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) NO2 columns to NOx emission controls on power plants in the United States: 2005-2011, Atmos. Environ., 81, p. 102-111, doi:10.1016/jatmosenv.2013.08.068, 2013. Article

Aerosol optical depths over the US

Li, S., L. Chen, M. Garay, and Y. Liu (2014), Comparison of GEOS-Chem aerosol optical depth with AERONET and MISR data over the contiguous United States, JGR-Atmosphere, 118, 1-14. Article

Nitrogen deposition in national parks

Ellis, R.A., D.J. Jacob, M.P. Sulprizio, L. Zhang, C.D. Holmes, B.A. Schichtel, T. Blett, E. Porter, L.H. Pardo, and J.A. Lynch, Present and future nitrogen deposition to national parks in the United States: critical load exceedances, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13, 9083-9095, 2013. Article

Background influences on western US air quality

Huang, M. , G. R. Carmichael, T. Chai, R. B. Pierce, S. J. Oltmans, D. A. Jaffe, K. W. Bowman, A. Kaduwela, C. Cai, S. N. Spak, A. J. Weinheimer, L. G. Huey, and G. S. Diskin, Impacts of transported background pollutants on summertime western US air quality: model evaluation, sensitivity analysis and data assimilation, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13, 359-391, 2013. Article

Fire emissions from MODIS

Peterson, D., J. Wang, C. Ichoku, E. Hyer, and V. Ambrosia, A sub-pixel-based calculation of fire radiative power from MODIS observations: 1: Algorithm development and initial assessment, Remote Sensing of Environment, 129, 262-279, 15 Feb 2013. Article

Emission trends in India

Lu, Zifeng. David G. Streets, Benjamin de Foy, and Nikolay. A. Krotkov, OMI Observations of Interannual Increase in SO2 Emissions from Indian Coal-Fired Power Plants during 2005−2012, Env. Sci. Tech, submitted, 2013. Article

Ammonia pollution from food export

Paulot F, D.J. Jacob, Hidden cost of U.S. agricultural exports: particulate matter from ammonia emissions, submitted to Environ. Sci. Technol., 2013. Article

Future fires and PM in the western US

Yue, X., L.J. Mickley, and J.A. Logan, Projection of wildfire activity in southern California in the mid-21st century, submitted to Clim. Dyn., 2013. Full paper

Yue, X., L. J. Mickley, J. A. Logan, and J. O. Kaplan, Ensemble projections of wildfire activity and carbonaceous aerosol concentrations over the western United States in the mid-21st century, Atmos. Env., 77, 767-780, 2013. Article

Effect of rising CO₂ on isoprene emission and air quality implications

Tai, A.P.K., L.J. Mickley, C.L. Heald, S. Wu, Effect of CO2 inhibition on biogenic isoprene emission: Implications for air quality under 2000-to-2050 changes in climate, vegetation, and land use, Geophys. Res. Let., 40, 3479-3483, 2013. Article

Detecting emissions from space: a review

Streets, D., T. Canty, G. Carmichael, B. de Foy, R. Dickerson,, B. Duncan, D. Edwards, J. Haynes, D. Henze, M. Houyoux, D. Jacob, N. Krotkov, L. Lamsal, Y. Liu, Z. Lu, R. Martin, Pfister, R. Pinder, R. Salawitch, and K. Wecht, Emissions estimation from satellite retrievals: A review of current capability, Atmos. Environ., 77, 1011-1042, 2013.Article

Use of satellite observations for PM forecasts

Saide, P. E., Carmichael, G. R., Liu, Z., Schwartz, C. S., Lin, H. C., da Silva, A. M., and Hyer, E.: Aerosol optical depth assimilation for a size-resolved sectional model: impacts of observationally constrained, multi-wavelength and fine mode retrievals on regional scale forecasts, Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., 13, 12213-12261, doi:10.5194/acpd-13-12213-2013, 2013. Full paper

Air quality modeling with coupled meteorology-chemistry models

Baklanov, A. Schluenzen, P. Suppan, J. Baldasano, D. Brunner, S. Aksoyoglu, G. Carmichael, et al., Online coupled regional meteorology-chemistry models in Europe: current status and prospects, Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., 13, 12541–12724, , 2013. [ http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/13/12541/2013/acpd-13-12541-2013.html Article]

High ozone on hot days

H. He, L. Hembeck, R. J. Salawitch, K. M. Hosley, and R. R. Dickerson, High ozone concentrations on hot days: The role of electric power demand and NOx emissions, Geophys. Res. Lett, 40, 1–4, doi:10.1002/grl.50967, 2013. Article

Improved ammonia emission inventory for the US

Paulot F., Jacob, D.J., Pinder R.W., Bash J.O., Travis, K., Henze D.K., Ammonia emissions in the United States, Europe, and China derived by high-resolution inversion of ammonium wet deposition data: Interpretation with a new agricultural emissions inventory (MASAGE_NH3), submitted to J. Geophys. Res., 2013. Full paper

Older publications

See the AQAST publications webpage for the full list of AQAST publications.

New AQAST presentations (with links)

Presentations from the AQAST5 meeting (June 4-6, 2013)

Click here for the meeting agenda with links to all presentations.

DISCOVER-AQ and the uses of remote sensing in air quality and climate studies

presented by Russ Dickerson at Brookhaven National Lab, May 16, 2013. Download pdf

What can we learn from observations and modeling to inform inventory estimates?

presented by Russ Dickerson to the Mid-Atlantic Regional Air Management Association, Inc. (MARAMA), February 27, 2013. Download

Iowa air quality: sources, trends, and new resources for emergency and routine events

presented by Scott Spak at the IPHA Governor’s Conference on Public Health, Ames, IA, 9 April 2013. Workshop handout Presentation

Modeling Ozone Exceptional Events: California, 2008 & Colorado/Wyoming, 2012

presented by Gabriele Pfister at the WESTAR Wildfire and Exceptional Ozone Events Meeting, California Air Resources Board, Sacramento, March 5-6, 2013 Meeting agenda and link to presentation