Annual Progress Report
CLEO 2011
Project 3.1 Atmospheric pollutant dispersion and deposition
Project leader:
Magnuz Engardt
SMHI, SE-601 76 Norrköping
Magnuz.Engardt@smhi.se
General Objective:
To use the chemical transport model MATCH to generate gridded fields of air quality and
deposition fluxes for present and future conditions. Future conditions should include the effects of
changing climate, changes in European tracer emissions following technical and political
achievements and possibly also due to changes in land-use.
Short description of activities 2011:
During 2011 we have completed a large number (~10) of long (100-140 years) simulations aimed
at exploring the effect of different tracer emissions scenarios and hemispheric boundary
concentrations. Data is available to partners in CLEO. We have particularly focussed on the impact
of changing hemispheric concentrations of O3 –which will strongly affect surface O3 in Sweden. The
results are discussed in a manuscript which has been submitted to a scientific journal and is
currently under review. Appendix 1 shows possible evolution of surface ozone in the Nordic
countries.
We have also worked with nitrogen and sulphur deposition during present and future times. For
future deposition, the driving climate data matters more than for e.g. surface ozone. We are
therefore expanding the suite of available simulations (different climate downscalings) and expect
additional results available in early 2012. The actual levels will, however, foremost be determined
by future nitrogen and sulphur emissions in Europe, which are expected to decrease. The results
are currently processed and a scientific paper is being prepared. For current nitrogen and sulphur
deposition we have evaluated the model against different datasets available in Sweden. The
results are encouraging although a comparison with data from MAGIC suggests that subgrid
downscaling or bias correction may have to be applied. Methods for this are being investigated.
Appendix 2 shows examples of deposition at a “CLEO-sites” and Appendix 3 gives an example of
MATCH performance for current climate.
We have been exploring possible alternative future tracer emission scenarios together with CLEOproject 1.3. We will probably wait for the release of dedicated European emission scenarios being
developed in other climate-change air-quality projects where SMHI is participating (see below).
Such data will be available during the summer of 2012, the latest.
Deliverables 2011:
D3.1.1 Gridded data on concentrations and depositions (month 12). Done.
Gridded data available for the full period 1990-2100 for two different climate scenarios (downscaled
HadCM3 and ECHAM5) and for two emissions scenarios (time varying emissions according to
RCP4.5 and constant emissions (at 2000 values).
D3.1.2 Improved routine for downscaling of O3 fluxes to vegetation (month 24). Delayed but work is
underway, will be completed during 2012.
Additional staff involved in project:
Joakim Langner and Camilla Andersson, SMHI
Per-Erik Karlsson (IVL); Håkan Pleijel and Jenny Klingberg (GUM)
Co-operation outside CLEO:
The current project benefits from the strong links with other research projects dealing with the
connection between climate change and European air quality. Particularly ENSCLIM funded by the
Nordic Council of Ministers (project no: KoL-10-04) and the EU FP7 projects ECLAIRE (project no:
282910) and IMPACT2C (project no: 282746), which both commenced in late 2011.
Reports and publications:
Andersson, C. and Engardt, M. 2010. European ozone in a future climate: Importance of changes
in dry deposition and isoprene emissions. J. Geophys. Res., 115, D02303.
doi:10.1029/2008JD011690
Langner, J., Engardt, M. and Andersson, C. 2012. Modelling the impact of climate change on air
pollution over Europe using the MATCH CTM linked to an ensemble of regional climate
scenarios. In: Air Pollution Modeling and its application XXI (Eds. D.G. Steyn and S.T. Castelli).
Springer Science+Business Media B.V., pp. 627-635. DOI: 10.1007/978-94-007-1359-8_103
J. Langner et al. 2012. A multi-model study of impacts of climate change on surface ozone in
Europe. Accepted for publication in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.
Langner, J., Engardt, M. and Andersson, C. 2011. European surface ozone 1990-2100. Submitted
manuscript.
Engardt, M and Langner, J. Simulations of nitrogen species over Europe using meteorological data
from different regional climate downscalings. Manuscript in preparation.
Oral presentations:
“Web Services for Incorporation of Air Quality and Climate Change in Long-Term Urban Planning
for Europe” Presentation by M. Engardt at ISESS 2011 - the International Symposium on
Environmental Software Systems, Brno 27-29 June 2011.
“High-resolution photochemical modelling of air quality in Stockholm. Current and future situation”
Presentation given by M. Engardt at UAQCC – Urban air quality and climate change. Joint
workshop of WMO and KlimaCampus, Univ. Hamburg. 16-18 August 2011.
“Ozone evolution under climate change” Presentation by M. Engardt at SMHI 9 Dec 2011.
Appendix 1.
The figure shows modelled summertime (April-September) average surface ozone concentration
averaged over Sweden, Norway, Finland end extreme north-western Russia (Kola peninsula and Karelia).
HAD_RCP2000_BC2000 (cyan) and ECH_RCP2000_BC2000 (blue) show the impact of climate change
alone from 1990-2100, tracer emissions and boundary concentrations are kept constant.
ECH_RCP4.5_BC2000 (black line) shows the combined effect of changing climate and changing tracer
emissions in Europe. In ECH_RCP4.5_BCtrend (our “best estimate of the future”; red line) we have
combined the effect of changing climate, changing tracer emissions and a possible evolution of
hemispheric background concentrations of ozone and methane.
As can be deduced from the figure will climate change alone result in small changes of surface
concentration over Sweden and its neighbouring countries. Simulations performed with different climate
downscalings (HadCM3 vs. ECHAM5) differ marginally. Changing tracer emissions in Europe would lead
to clearly decreasing surface ozone in the region, where it not for the increasing hemispheric background
which will to a large degree control surface ozone in this area.
Appendix 2.
The figures compare modelled and measured deposition of oxidised nitrogen at CLEO-site Kindla
(59.75ºN 14.91ºE). Blue dots are monthly values from the model, purple circles are monitoring data. Black
horizontal bars indicate mean values - in the model - over different target periods. MATCH ave and Obs.
Ave is the average and standard deviations of the monthly values from the model and observations
during the period with observations. Note that individual months are not expected to coincide since model
run is forced by meteorology from a climate model which should only reproduce the average and
variability of the real world. The two panels depict simulations with time varying European tracer
emissions according to RCP4.5. forced with downscaled meteorology from HadCM3 and ECHAM5,
respectively. The impact of reduced nitrogen emissions in the future is clearly seen.
Appendix 3
The figures show a comparison between sulphur and nitrogen dry and wet deposition for present climate.
Monitoring data is taken from “Krondroppsnätet”. Modelled data is from a MATCH simulation using
downscaled HadCM3 climate with temporally varying tracer emissions according to RCP4.5. Data is
averaged over the periods with observations (4-7 years around 2005). While the wet deposition in
MATCH deviates less than a factor of two from observations is the correspondence with observed dry
deposition poorer. The reason for the discrepancies can be sought both in measurement problems,
unrepresentative meteorology during the 5 year period, erroneous emissions or imperfections in the
model.