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| Titel |
Trends in NO2 and the Effects of the Economic Crisis Observed by OMI over Europe |
| VerfasserIn |
Patricia Castellanos, Hugo van der Gon, Mark Kroon, Pepijn Veefkind, Piet Stammes, Pieternel Levelt, Folkert Boersma |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2011
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 13 (2011) |
| Datensatznummer |
250051276
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| Zusammenfassung |
| Tropospheric NO2 plays an important role in air pollution and atmospheric chemistry,
particularly O3 chemistry. Air quality thresholds for O3 and NO2 set by the European
Comission to protect human health are still frequently exceeded in EU member
states. The primary anthropogenic sources of NOx (NO + NO2) are combustion
processes, namely motor vehicle emissions, power generation, and industrial activities.
Emissions from these sectors are controlled by legislation and economic growth or
recession. We examine the effect of the 2009 economic crisis on European NOx
emissions with observations of NO2 tropospheric columns from the Ozone Monitoring
Instrument (OMI) from 2004 to 2010. We use the Kolmogorov-Zurbenko (KZ) filter to
isolate long term NO2 variability from seasonal fluctuations. We perform Empirical
Orthogonal Function (EOF) analysis on the filtered OMI NO2 data to determine the most
significant spatial and temporal variations. We reduce the dimensionality of the
data to three components. The NO2 long term trend over Europe is predominantly
driven by declining NO2 at a rate of 2-5% per year before 2008, followed by a
10-25% per year decrease in NO2 until the middle of 2009 in industrialized areas
in Germany, Poland, Belgium, the United Kingdom, the Po River Valley, and the
major cities in southern Europe. The pre 2008 decline is in line with trends in the
high resolution bottom up European emissions inventory developed by TNO for
the MACC project. The remaining two components from the EOF analysis are
compared to interannual variability in ECMWF data fields. We compare OMI NO2 to
NO2 columns simulated with the regional air quality model CHIMERE for periods
before and after the economic crisis assuming 2010 emissions ceiling levels for
EU member states after 2008. Thereby, we obtain an independent estimate of the
contribution of the 2009 ecomonic crisis to declining NOx emissions in Europe. |
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