Advances in understanding urban air pollution from the NARSTO-NEOPS program
Document ID: 163
Philbrick, C. Russell1
Ryan, William F.1
Clark, Richard D.2
Doddridge, Bruce G.3
Hopke, Philip K.4
McDow, Stephen R.5
1 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, U.S.A.
2 Millersville University of Pennsylvania, Millersville, PA, U.S.A.
3 University of Maryland, College Park, MD, U.S.A.
4 Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY, U.S.A.
5 Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, U.S.A.
Abstract
The NARSTO-NE-OPS (North East Oxidant and Particle Study) is an investigation of the coupling of the meteorological and chemical processes that control the evolution of air pollution events. The project includes four major field programs which have been carried out at a field site in northeast Philadelphia during the summers of 1998, 1999, 2001 and 2002. These activities bring together the research groups from several universities and government laboratories to apply advanced measurement techniques for understanding the physical and chemical processes contributing to air quality issues. During the 21 cumulative weeks of summer field intensives, the meteorological and chemical characteristics associated with a wide range of atmospheric processes were observed. The results provide a three-dimensional regional scale picture of the atmosphere, which is essential for understanding the physical and chemical processes that control air pollution events. Vertical profiles of atmospheric properties are required to properly model and predict ozone and particulate matter concentrations. Horizontal transport aloft and vertical mixing processes are found to be key factors controlling the development and evolution of important periods of air pollution. Efforts have also focused on development and testing of several new approaches to improve measuring techniques for better understanding of the physical and chemical properties of the airborne particulate matter. The results of the NEOPS program are providing a data base for development and testing the next generation of atmospheric air pollution models. Concerns regarding the health effects that have been tied to air pollution events cause us to undertake major efforts to understand the physical and chemical processes that control air pollution episodes. The two principal components of the atmosphere that have been singled out as major air pollution concerns are ozone and airborne particulate matter (PM).
Airborne particulate matter has been shown to be associated with increased hospital admissions for cardiovascular disease. Ozone is a known toxic species that causes deleterious respiratory effects, particularly causing blisters in the respiratory tract, ageing of tissue and complications for older individuals, and those with asthma and other respiratory problems. Future requirements to forecast hazard levels for warning and protecting those most susceptible requires the development and testing of physics based models that will accurately describe the evolution of air pollution episodes. The efforts of this project are focused on developing the needed understanding of the governing physical and chemical processes and providing results for testing and developing the next generation of meteorological and air quality models.
The research conducted during summer 2002 continued the core activity of our research effort to investigate air quality issues in the northeast, as a follow-on project to the USEPA sponsored study entitled Investigations of Factors Determining the Occurrence of Ozone and Fine Particles in Northeastern USA. The associated measurement program has been referred to as the NARSTO-NEOPS project, which is from the acronym North East Oxidant and Particle Study and has been adopted as a part of the NARSTO Program for data archiving purposes. The 2002 campaign is referred to as NEOPS-DEP 2002, signifying that this measurement campaign was added to the project through support from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. The special goals of the 2002 summer intensive included an opportunity to provide a data set that will overlap and have special significance to the northeast Supersites studies and provide measurements during a special investigation of airborne particulate matter in the northeast, referred to as MANE-VU. The measurements were carried out between 29 June and 7 August 2002 to obtain measurements during the most interesting summer period and fully overlap with the other measurement programs in the region. The parameters include the key meteorological properties, gas chemistry, and particulate physical/chemical properties. The major efforts include remote sensing techniques through the troposphere and insitu tethered balloon measurements of meteorology and ozone from surface to 300 m for vertical profiling of the meteorological and air quality properties, a suite of surface instruments for measuring the concentrations of key chemical species and the particulate matter physical/chemical properties using the most recent techniques for high time resolution sampling, measurements of meteorological parameters at the surface using a 10 m tower, and measurements of minor/toxic species from filter samples using very high resolution GC/MS laboratory techniques. The analysis is extended using other data to include local and regional results. The instruments and measured properties are described in more detail in the following sections. The primary results provide an important data base to test model developments and extend our understanding of physical/chemical processes and sources of air pollution. The results will be shared through the web with other researchers, with particular emphasis on the cooperation with the northeast Supersites in an effort to help create a regional picture of air pollution episodes.
There are three primary factors which make the NEOPS-DEP 2002 activity particularly valuable. First, the NE-OPS project site is ideally located and the team strengths provide valuable instrument techniques for measurements of the air quality and meteorological context at a central regional site for coordination and collaboration with the Northeast Supersites in Baltimore, New York and Pittsburgh. Second, the NE-OPS emphasis on the measurements of particulate matter and the vertical extent of airborne PM provides key measurements for understanding the regional haze questions and useful coordinated measurements with the MANE-VU (Mid-Atlantic/Northeast Visibility Union) investigation of northeast regional haze. Third, the major intensives of the NE-OPS project to date have been conducted during the summers of 1999 and 2001 which represented the 90th percentile wet and 90th percentile dry conditions, and additional summer air pollution episodes need to be examined. By maintaining the effort of a core group of NE-OPS investigators, additional emphasis and value is given to analysis and interpretation of the results from prior intensives and setting the new results into proper context.
| Citation: | "Advances in understanding urban air pollution from the NARSTO-NEOPS program", Philbrick, C. R., W. F. Ryan, R. D. Clark, B. G. Doddridge, P. K. Hopke, S. R. McDow, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, American Meteorological Society, Section: 6.1, 2003, pp. 1 - 11 |