scholarly journals Modeling the diurnal variability of agricultural ammonia in Bakersfield, California, during the CalNex campaign

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 2721-2739 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chantelle R. Lonsdale ◽  
Jennifer D. Hegarty ◽  
Karen E. Cady-Pereira ◽  
Matthew J. Alvarado ◽  
Daven K. Henze ◽  
...  

Abstract. NH3 retrievals from the NASA Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES), as well as surface and aircraft observations of NH3(g) and submicron NH4(p), are used to evaluate modeled concentrations of NH3(g) and NH4(p) from the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model in the San Joaquin Valley (SJV) during the California Research at the Nexus of Air Quality and Climate Change (CalNex) campaign. We find that simulations of NH3 driven with the California Air Resources Board (CARB) emission inventory are qualitatively and spatially consistent with TES satellite observations, with a correlation coefficient (r2) of 0.64. However, the surface observations at Bakersfield indicate a diurnal cycle in the model bias, with CMAQ overestimating surface NH3 at night and underestimating it during the day. The surface, satellite, and aircraft observations all suggest that daytime NH3 emissions in the CARB inventory are underestimated by at least a factor of 2, while the nighttime overestimate of NH3(g) is likely due to a combination of overestimated NH3 emissions and underestimated deposition.Running CMAQ v5.0.2 with the bi-directional NH3 scheme reduces NH3 concentrations at night and increases them during the day. This reduces the model bias when compared to the surface and satellite observations, but the increased concentrations aloft significantly increase the bias relative to the aircraft observations. We attempt to further reduce model bias by using the surface observations at Bakersfield to derive an empirical diurnal cycle of NH3 emissions in the SJV, in which nighttime and midday emissions differ by about a factor of 4.5. Running CMAQv5.0.2 with a bi-directional NH3 scheme together with this emissions diurnal profile further reduces model bias relative to the surface observations. Comparison of these simulations with the vertical profile retrieved by TES shows little bias except for the lowest retrieved level, but the model bias relative to flight data aloft increases slightly. Our results indicate that both diurnally varying emissions and a bi-directional NH3 scheme should be applied when modeling NH3(g) and NH4(p) in this region. The remaining model errors suggest that the bi-directional NH3 scheme in CMAQ v5.0.2 needs further improvements to shift the peak NH3 land–atmosphere flux to earlier in the day. We recommend that future work include updates to the current CARB NH3 inventory to account for NH3 from fertilizer application, livestock, and other farming practices separately; adding revised information on crop management practices specific to the SJV region to the bi-directional NH3 scheme; and top-down studies focused on determining the diurnally varying biases in the canopy compensation point that determines the net land–atmosphere NH3 fluxes.

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. R. Lonsdale ◽  
J. D. Hegarty ◽  
K. Cady-Pereira ◽  
M. J. Alvarado ◽  
D. K. Henze ◽  
...  

Abstract. NH3 retrievals from the NASA Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES), as well as surface and aircraft observations of NH3(g) and submicron NH4(p), are to used to evaluate modelled concentrations of NH3(g) and NH4(p) from the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model in the San Joaquin Valley (SJV) during the California Research at the Nexus of Air Quality and Climate Change (CalNex) campaign. We find that simulations of NH3 driven with the California Air Resources Board (CARB) CalNex emission inventory are qualitatively and spatially consistent with TES satellite observations, with a correlation coefficient (r2) of 0.54. However, the surface observations at Bakersfield indicate a missing diurnal cycle in the model bias, with CMAQ overestimating surface NH3 at night and underestimating it during the day. The surface, satellite, and aircraft observations all suggest that the afternoon NH3 emissions in the CARB inventory are underestimated by at least a factor of two, while the night-time overestimate of NH3(g) is likely due to a combination of overestimated NH3 emissions, underestimated deposition, and insufficient vertical mixing in the WRF meteorological fields used to drive CMAQ. We used the surface observations at Bakersfield to derive an empirical diurnal cycle of NH3 emissions in the SJV, in which night-time and midday emissions differed by about a factor of 4.5. Adding this diurnal profile to the CMAQ simulations while keeping the daily NH3 emissions constant at the CARB values significantly improved the model performance at night, but sizable errors (up to 15 ppbv) in night-time NH3 remain, likely due to remaining errors in vertical mixing at night. The model performance is slightly degraded during the afternoon when the diurnal cycle is adjusted, but this may reflect relatively small (~ 20 %) errors in the total NH3 emissions rather than remaining errors in the diurnal cycle. Running CMAQv5.0.2 with bi-directional NH3 flux also improves model performance on a similar scale, while combining bi-directional NH3 fluxes and adjusted emissions significantly reduces the model bias at night.


2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 8143-8191 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Zhang ◽  
D. J. Jacob ◽  
K. F. Boersma ◽  
D. A. Jaffe ◽  
J. R. Olson ◽  
...  

Abstract. We use an ensemble of aircraft, satellite, sonde, and surface observations for April–May 2006 (NASA/INTEX-B aircraft campaign) to better understand the mechanisms for transpacific ozone pollution and its implications for North American air quality. The observations are interpreted with a global 3-D chemical transport model (GEOS-Chem). OMI NO2 satellite observations constrain Asian anthropogenic NOx emissions and indicate a factor of 2 increase from 2000 to 2006 in China. Satellite observations of CO from AIRS and TES indicate two major events of Asian transpacific pollution during INTEX-B. Correlation between TES CO and ozone observations shows evidence for transpacific ozone pollution. The semi-permanent Pacific High and Aleutian Low cause splitting of transpacific pollution plumes over the Northeast Pacific. The northern branch circulates around the Aleutian Low and has little impact on North America. The southern branch circulates around the Pacific High and impacts western North America. Both aircraft measurements and model results show sustained ozone production driven by peroxyacetylnitrate (PAN) decomposition in the southern branch, roughly doubling the transpacific influence from ozone produced in the Asian boundary layer. Model simulation of ozone observations at Mt. Bachelor Observatory in Oregon (2.7 km altitude) indicates a mean Asian ozone pollution contribution of 9±3 ppbv to the mean observed concentration of 54 ppbv, reflecting mostly an enhancement in background ozone rather than episodic Asian plumes. Asian pollution enhanced surface ozone concentrations by 5–7 ppbv over western North America in spring 2006. The 2000–2006 rise in Asian anthropogenic emissions increased the influence by 1–2 ppbv.


2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (20) ◽  
pp. 6117-6136 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Zhang ◽  
D. J. Jacob ◽  
K. F. Boersma ◽  
D. A. Jaffe ◽  
J. R. Olson ◽  
...  

Abstract. We use an ensemble of aircraft, satellite, sonde, and surface observations for April–May 2006 (NASA/INTEX-B aircraft campaign) to better understand the mechanisms for transpacific ozone pollution and its implications for North American air quality. The observations are interpreted with a global 3-D chemical transport model (GEOS-Chem). OMI NO2 satellite observations constrain Asian anthropogenic NOx emissions and indicate a factor of 2 increase from 2000 to 2006 in China. Satellite observations of CO from AIRS and TES indicate two major events of Asian transpacific pollution during INTEX-B. Correlation between TES CO and ozone observations shows evidence for transpacific ozone pollution. The semi-permanent Pacific High and Aleutian Low cause splitting of transpacific pollution plumes over the Northeast Pacific. The northern branch circulates around the Aleutian Low and has little impact on North America. The southern branch circulates around the Pacific High and some of that air impacts western North America. Both aircraft measurements and model results show sustained ozone production driven by peroxyacetylnitrate (PAN) decomposition in the southern branch, roughly doubling the transpacific influence from ozone produced in the Asian boundary layer. Model simulation of ozone observations at Mt. Bachelor Observatory in Oregon (2.7 km altitude) indicates a mean Asian ozone pollution contribution of 9±3 ppbv to the mean observed concentration of 54 ppbv, reflecting mostly an enhancement in background ozone rather than episodic Asian plumes. Asian pollution enhanced surface ozone concentrations by 5–7 ppbv over western North America in spring 2006. The 2000–2006 rise in Asian anthropogenic emissions increased this influence by 1–2 ppbv.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine R. Travis ◽  
Daniel J. Jacob

Abstract. Chemical transport models typically evaluate their simulation of surface ozone with observations of the maximum daily 8-hour average (MDA8) concentration, which is the standard air quality policy metric. This requires successful simulation of the surface ozone diurnal cycle including nighttime depletion, but models are generally biased high at night because of difficulty in resolving the stratified conditions near the surface. We quantify the problem with the GEOS-Chem model for the Southeast US during the NASA SEAC4RS aircraft campaign in August–September 2013. The model is unbiased relative to the daytime mixed layer aircraft observations but has a +5 ppb bias relative to MDA8 surface ozone observations. The model also does not capture observed occurrences of


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 1213-1226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaixu Bai ◽  
Ke Li ◽  
Jianping Guo ◽  
Yuanjian Yang ◽  
Ni-Bin Chang

Abstract. Data gaps in surface air quality measurements significantly impair the data quality and the exploration of these valuable data sources. In this study, a novel yet practical method called diurnal-cycle-constrained empirical orthogonal function (DCCEOF) was developed to fill in data gaps present in data records with evident temporal variability. The hourly PM2.5 concentration data retrieved from the national ambient air quality monitoring network in China were used as a demonstration. The DCCEOF method aims to reconstruct the diurnal cycle of PM2.5 concentration from its discrete neighborhood field in space and time firstly and then predict the missing values by calibrating the reconstructed diurnal cycle to the level of valid PM2.5 concentrations observed at adjacent times. The statistical results indicate a high frequency of data gaps in our retrieved hourly PM2.5 concentration record, with PM2.5 concentration measured on about 40 % of the days suffering from data gaps. Further sensitivity analysis results reveal that data gaps in the hourly PM2.5 concentration record may introduce significant bias to its daily averages, especially during clean episodes at which PM2.5 daily averages are observed to be subject to larger uncertainties compared to the polluted days (even in the presence of the same amount of missingness). The cross-validation results indicate that our suggested DCCEOF method has a good prediction accuracy, particularly in predicting daily peaks and/or minima that cannot be restored by conventional interpolation approaches, thus confirming the effectiveness of the consideration of the local diurnal variation pattern in gap filling. By applying the DCCEOF method to the hourly PM2.5 concentration record measured in China from 2014 to 2019, the data completeness ratio was substantially improved while the frequency of days with gapped PM2.5 records reduced from 42.6 % to 5.7 %. In general, our DCCEOF method provides a practical yet effective approach to handle data gaps in time series of geophysical parameters with significant diurnal variability, and this method is also transferable to other data sets with similar barriers because of its self-consistent capability.


2020 ◽  
pp. 102688
Author(s):  
Yogesh Sathe ◽  
Pawan Gupta ◽  
Moqtik Bawase ◽  
Lok Lamsal ◽  
Falguni Patadia ◽  
...  

Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 563
Author(s):  
Kelsey Anderson ◽  
Philip A. Moore ◽  
Jerry Martin ◽  
Amanda J. Ashworth

Gaseous emissions from poultry litter causes production problems for producers as well as the environment, by contributing to climate change and reducing air quality. Novel methods of reducing ammonia (NH3) and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in poultry facilities are needed. As such, our research evaluated GHG emissions over a 42 d period. Three separate flocks of 1000 broilers were used for this study. The first flock was used only to produce litter needed for the experiment. The second and third flocks were allocated to 20 pens in a randomized block design with four replicated of five treatments. The management practices studied included an unamended control; a conventional practice of incorporating aluminum sulfate (referred to as alum) at 98 kg/100 m2); a novel litter amendment made from alum mud, bauxite, and sulfuric acid (alum mud litter amendment, AMLA) applied at different rates (49 and 98 kg/100 m2) and methods (surface applied or incorporated). Nitrous oxide emissions were low for all treatments in flocks 2 and 3 (0.40 and 0.37 mg m2 hr−1, respectively). The formation of caked litter (due to excessive moisture) during day 35 and 42 caused high variability in CH4 and CO2 emissions. Alum mud litter amendment and alum did not significantly affect GHGs emissions from litter, regardless of the amendment rate or application method. In fact, litter amendments such as alum and AMLA typically lower GHG emissions from poultry facilities by reducing ventilation requirements to maintain air quality in cooler months due to lower NH3 levels, resulting in less propane use and concomitant reductions in CO2 emissions.


Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 302
Author(s):  
Rajesh Kumar ◽  
Piyush Bhardwaj ◽  
Gabriele Pfister ◽  
Carl Drews ◽  
Shawn Honomichl ◽  
...  

This paper describes a quasi-operational regional air quality forecasting system for the contiguous United States (CONUS) developed at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) to support air quality decision-making, field campaign planning, early identification of model errors and biases, and support the atmospheric science community in their research. This system aims to complement the operational air quality forecasts produced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), not to replace them. A publicly available information dissemination system has been established that displays various air quality products, including a near-real-time evaluation of the model forecasts. Here, we report the performance of our air quality forecasting system in simulating meteorology and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) for the first year after our system started, i.e., 1 June 2019 to 31 May 2020. Our system shows excellent skill in capturing hourly to daily variations in temperature, surface pressure, relative humidity, water vapor mixing ratios, and wind direction but shows relatively larger errors in wind speed. The model also captures the seasonal cycle of surface PM2.5 very well in different regions and for different types of sites (urban, suburban, and rural) in the CONUS with a mean bias smaller than 1 µg m−3. The skill of the air quality forecasts remains fairly stable between the first and second days of the forecasts. Our air quality forecast products are publicly available at a NCAR webpage. We invite the community to use our forecasting products for their research, as input for urban scale (<4 km), air quality forecasts, or the co-development of customized products, just to name a few applications.


1986 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. F. DORMAAR ◽  
C. W. LINDWALL ◽  
G. C. KOZUB

A field was artificially eroded by levelling in 1957 and then continuously cropped to barley for 7 yr. Subsequently, a wheat-fallow experiment was conducted from 1965 to 1979 to determine the effects of four fertilizer treatments and green manure (yellow sweet clover) on restoring the productivity to soil that had been "eroded" to various depths. After 22 yr and 14 crops, the productivity of the land from which soil was removed has been improved but not fully restored. Although green manuring with yellow sweet clover improved soil structure, wheat yields were not improved because of competition for soil moisture and poorer in-crop weed control in this part of the rotation. The addition of 45 kg N plus 90 kg P2O5 per hectare in each crop year to sites from which 8–10, 10–20, or 46 + cm of soil had been removed resulted in yield increases of 18, 46, and 70%, respectively, over the unfertilized check of each treatment; the average yields were 104, 91, and 70%, respectively, of the undisturbed, unfertilized (check) treatment. On "erosion" treatments where only 8–10 cm of soil were removed, 45 kg N plus 22 kg P2O5 per hectare were sufficient to restore the productivity. Precipitation apparently had a greater effect than fertilizer application on wheat yields. The loss of organic matter and associated soil structure characteristics seemed to be critical factors contributing to yield losses associated with soil erosion. These results show that it is more practical to use management practices that prevent soil erosion than to adopt the practices required to restore eroded soil. Key words: Soil erosion, topsoil loss, water-stable aggregates, soil organic matter, green manure, precipitation


2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (13) ◽  
pp. 9457-9473 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vincent Noel ◽  
Hélène Chepfer ◽  
Marjolaine Chiriaco ◽  
John Yorks

Abstract. We document, for the first time, how detailed vertical profiles of cloud fraction (CF) change diurnally between 51∘ S and 51∘ N, by taking advantage of 15 months of measurements from the Cloud-Aerosol Transport System (CATS) lidar on the non-sun-synchronous International Space Station (ISS). Over the tropical ocean in summer, we find few high clouds during daytime. At night they become frequent over a large altitude range (11–16 km between 22:00 and 04:00 LT). Over the summer tropical continents, but not over ocean, CATS observations reveal mid-level clouds (4–8 km above sea level or a.s.l.) persisting all day long, with a weak diurnal cycle (minimum at noon). Over the Southern Ocean, diurnal cycles appear for the omnipresent low-level clouds (minimum between noon and 15:00) and high-altitude clouds (minimum between 08:00 and 14:00). Both cycles are time shifted, with high-altitude clouds following the changes in low-altitude clouds by several hours. Over all continents at all latitudes during summer, the low-level clouds develop upwards and reach a maximum occurrence at about 2.5 km a.s.l. in the early afternoon (around 14:00). Our work also shows that (1) the diurnal cycles of vertical profiles derived from CATS are consistent with those from ground-based active sensors on a local scale, (2) the cloud profiles derived from CATS measurements at local times of 01:30 and 13:30 are consistent with those observed from CALIPSO at similar times, and (3) the diurnal cycles of low and high cloud amounts (CAs) derived from CATS are in general in phase with those derived from geostationary imagery but less pronounced. Finally, the diurnal variability of cloud profiles revealed by CATS strongly suggests that CALIPSO measurements at 01:30 and 13:30 document the daily extremes of the cloud fraction profiles over ocean and are more representative of daily averages over land, except at altitudes above 10 km where they capture part of the diurnal variability. These findings are applicable to other instruments with local overpass times similar to CALIPSO's, such as all the other A-Train instruments and the future EarthCARE mission.


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