Details of Award
NERC Reference : NE/L008947/1
Impacts of emission control policies and climate change on air quality over Europe and the UK
Training Grant Award
- Lead Supervisor:
- Professor R Doherty, University of Edinburgh, Sch of Geosciences
- Grant held at:
- University of Edinburgh, Sch of Geosciences
- Science Area:
- Atmospheric
- Terrestrial
- Overall Classification:
- Atmospheric
- ENRIs:
- Global Change
- Pollution and Waste
- Science Topics:
- None
- Abstract:
- Air pollution is the environmental factor with the greatest impact on human health in Europe. The main pollutants of concern are nitrogen dioxide (NO2), ozone (O3) and particulate matter (PM), the latter consisting of many different inorganic and organic chemical species in particles of widely-varying size. Understanding the distribution of these air pollutants is complex because: they are largely produced by interacting chemical reactions within the atmosphere rather than being directly emitted, there are multiple manmade and natural sources of the precursors, and all these processes are influenced by atmospheric and land-surface conditions and meteorological transport. For example, temperature and sunlight influences reaction rates; precipitation affects wet deposition; synoptic weather patterns influence transport of polluted air masses. Thus as climate changes, air pollution will be affected. Changes in climate and CO2 may also affect isoprene emitted from stomata which under high NOx conditions over Europe is an O3 and PM precursor. Understanding the interactions that control these pollutants is of crucial importance for policy makers that seek to improve air quality by developing laws and actions, such as limits on emissions of specific pollutants from different sectors, or low emission zones. Moreover, existing air quality standards focus on each air pollutant separately, to the extent that policy action to limit one pollutant can sometimes lead to increase in another. Focusing on multiple pollutants can help identify the most effective source control measures to reduce adverse health burden overall. The aim of this project is to use global and regional versions of the UK Chemistry and Aerosol (UKCA) model under present-day and future scenarios to compare the impacts of emission control policies and climate change on atmospheric composition. Novel insights will be gained into the contribution of hemispheric background vs. regional/local changes to air quality, and the key drivers of change in the future. The individual objectives are: 1. Model the distributions of the three main air pollutants (NO2, O3 and PM) that affect human health across Europe and the UK, particularly during recent air quality episodes assessing local vs. background influences, using UKCA for regional European and UK domains, and evaluate against monitor observations. 2. Perform a model inter-comparison of the UKCA and EMEP models to highlight robust features and identify where the largest uncertainties exist, such as in the relative fraction of inorganic and organic components in PM. 3. Quantify the effect of future emission control policies and climate change on simulated regional atmospheric composition (focussing on the relevant air quality metrics). 4. Quantify the key processes associated with regional climate change that drive changes in atmospheric composition and air quality exceedances. The supervisory team is a collaboration between the University of Edinburgh and the UK Met Office Hadley Centre. The project is timely as it will strongly benefit from results from an ongoing cross-research council funded collaboration (AWESOME) across 5 institutions including the University of Edinburgh and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. AWESOME aims to investigate the combined effects of air pollution and weather on human health, feeding through to policy using multi-criteria decision analyses and is funded until summer 2015. The PhD project will use 3-way nesting of UKCA, from the global scale (~100km) through the European scale (50 km) to a 12-km UK domain. Model simulations will be performed for present-day and considering future scenarios of emission reductions and climate. Model outputs of air quality metrics for NO2, O3 and PM (e.g. 8-hour daily maximum) will be evaluated and future changes quantified.
- NERC Reference:
- NE/L008947/1
- Grant Stage:
- Completed
- Scheme:
- DTG - directed
- Grant Status:
- Closed
- Programme:
- Industrial CASE
This training grant award has a total value of £83,515
FDAB - Financial Details (Award breakdown by headings)
| Total - Fees | Total - RTSG | Total - Student Stipend |
|---|---|---|
| £16,226 | £11,000 | £56,292 |
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