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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.

5th AQAST Meeting (AQAST5): Jue 4-6, 2013 at the University of Maryland at College Park

AQAST5 was held on June 4-6, 2013 at the University of Maryland at College Park. Our hosts were AQAST members Russ Dickerson and Bryan Duncan, together with Ana Prados who leads the NASA NASA Applied Remote SEnsing Training (ARSET). The meeting attracted over 130 attendees including air quality managers from a number of state, regional, and national agencies. Click here for the meeting program and links to the presentations.

6th AQAST Meeting (AQAST6): January 15-17, 2014 at the University of Texas at Austin

The next AQAST meeting (AQAST6) will be held January 15-17 (Wednesday-Friday) at the University of Texas at Austin. Our hosts will be Prof. David Allen from U. Texas Austin and AQAST member Dan Cohan. Mark your calendars!

AQAST Project Highlights

AQAST supports Wyoming exceptional event demonstration

AQAST member Brad Pierce provided aircraft, satellite, and modeling data to assist the state of Wyoming in an exceptional event demonstration related to a NAAQS ozone exceedance at Thunder Basin on June 5, 2012. Click here for more details

Saint Louis ozone garden gears up for its second year

AQAST member Jack Fishman is using ozone gardens to educate the public on the harm to vegetation from surface ozone. Click here to learn more. A second ozone garden was also recently started by the AQAST group at Harvard.

New AQAST publications (with links)

Future fires in Southern California

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

Future fires and PM in the western US

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, in press, Atmospheric Environment, 2013. Full paper

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, in press, Geophys. Res. Let., 2013. Full paper

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., in press, doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2013.05.051. Full paper

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 in Europe

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, doi:10.5194/acpd-13-12541-2013, 2013. Full paper

Air quality forecasting for Maryland

Garner, G.G., A.M. Thompson, P. Lee, and D.K. Martins, Evaluation of NAQFC model performance in forecasting surface ozone during the 2011 DISCOVER-AQ campaign, J. Atmos. Chem., DOI 10.1007/s10874-013-9251-z, 2013. Full paper

Nitrogen deposition in US National Parks

Ellis, R.A., D.J. Jacob, M. Payer, 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, submitted to Atmos. Chem. Phys., 2013. Full paper

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