Emissions

AeroCom wiki discussion entry

Go back to AeroCom/Working group structure

See also summary of AeroCom/Recommendations

Working group members

T. Bond, F. Dentener, B. DeAngelo, T. Diehl, C. Ichoku, T. Nozawa, C. Textor

Others are invited. Edit yourself in!

Guiding principles

AEROCOM has declared an emissions working group. This group should not duplicate efforts occurring elsewhere. It should serve as an interface between the needs of AEROCOM and coordinated efforts such as GEIA (Global Emission Inventory Activity), the Energy Modeling Forum, TF-HTAP (Task Force on Transport of Hemispheric Air Pollution).

Species

Emissions of interest are:

• Sulfate (anthropogenic, DMS, volcanic)
• Black carbon
• Primary organic carbon
• Secondary organic carbon (anthropogenic, biogenic)
• Nitrate
• Ammonium
• Sea salt
• Dust (Covered under a separate working group, but the Emissions group should work closely with the Dust group—Paul Ginoux)

Suggestion: Divide emissions into those that respond directly to meteorology (dust, sea salt, biogenic) and those that do not (industrial sources). There is some gray area between, but the assessment probably has different approaches.

Present-day emissions

The AEROCOM fixed-emission run has already been completed. It may be efficient for future runs to use the same emissions. Therefore, the emissions working group will not have a strong focus on specifying new mass emission fields for present-day model experiments. However, some additions to the present emission sets could be of interest. Tasks:

1. Recommend "typical" and "extreme" years for biomass burning. Best years will have satellite data and intensive field experiments. (Ichoku)

2. Identify gaps in emissions (Dentener—based on previous AEROCOM)

3. Summarize which emissions can provide min-central-max. Develop recommendations and requests for GEIA. (Dentener, Bond)

Interaction between model and emissions

Lead: C. Textor

Tasks following up on AEROCOM B experiment, which highlighted some data needs on the emission side. T

1. Delineate issues that arose during this experiment, and identify the extent to which existing emissions can provide such data. This could include size distribution and hygroscopicity. Data structure issues could also be addressed.

2. Raise these issues with GEIA and others to determine if these needs can be satisfied.

3. Recommend way forward.

Future emissions

Lead: B. DeAngelo

Initial AEROCOM experiments may address years 2030 and 2050. Year 2100 is also of interest, but these model experiments are in the more distant future. Tasks:

1. Summarize future years: what emissions and what future years are available, and the methods that were used to derive the emissions.

2. Determine if emission data set for 2030 and 2050 is complete enough to support AEROCOM runs. Same source sectors as for AEROCOM 2000 experiment are needed.

3. Identify which AEROCOM modeling teams are interested in modeling future emissions, and what data formatting issues (e.g., geographic and temporal resolution gridding) must be addressed.

4. Estimate emission projection uncertainty by comparing multiple scenarios. Provide min-central-max data (potentially from a small number of emission modelers such as Streets et al. and EMF) to AEROCOM, and compare future aerosol forcing to potential future GHG forcing.

5. Identify inputs from AEROCOM that could be useful for simple climate models. An example is radiative forcing per mass for a limited number of regions.

Past emissions

Leads: T. Nozawa, T. Diehl

Evolution of aerosol radiative forcing in 20th century is of interest.

1. Identify what years (or what time resolution) are desired by AEROCOM. Proposal: 1790 to 2000 in steps of 10 years.

2. Summarize past years: what emissions and what past years are available, and the methods that were used to derive the emissions. (Nozawa)

3. Specific emissions: Volcanoes, aircraft, ships (Diehl)

4. Determine whether an update to 1750 emissions is warranted.

Spatial distribution

Lead: T. Nozawa

Identify spatial distribution issues, especially for past and future emissions. Identify possible solutions to those issues.