Evaluation of size segregation of elemental carbon emission in Europe: influence on atmospheric long-range transportation
Abstract. Elemental Carbon (EC) has significant impact on human health and climate change. In order to evaluate the size segregation of EC emission and investigation of its influence on atmospheric transport processes in Europe, we used the fully coupled online Weather Research and Forecasting/Chemistry model (WRF-Chem) at a resolution of 2 km focusing on a region in Germany, in conjunction with a high-resolution EC emission inventory. The ground meteorology conditions, vertical structure and wind pattern were well reproduced by the model. The simulations of particle number/mass size distributions were evaluated by observations taken at the central European background site Melpitz. The fine mode aerosol was reasonably well simulated, but the coarse mode was substantially overestimated by the model. We found that it was mainly due to the nearby point source plume emitting a high amount of EC in the coarse mode. The comparisons between simulated EC and Multi-angle Absorption Photometers (MAAP) measurements at Melpitz, Leipzig-TROPOS and Bösel indicated that coarse mode EC (ECc) emission in the nearby point sources might be overestimated by a factor of 2–10. The emission fraction of EC in coarse mode was overestimated by about 10–30 % for Russian and 5–10 % for Eastern Europe (e.g.: Poland and Belarus), respectively. This overestimation in ECc emission fraction makes EC particles having less opportunity to accumulate in the atmosphere and participate to the long range transport, due to the shorter lifetime of coarse mode aerosol. The deposition concept model showed that the transported EC mass from Warsaw and Moskva to Melpitz may be reduced by 25–35 and 25–55 % respectively, due to the overestimation of ECc emission fraction. This may partly explain the underestimation of EC concentrations for Germany under eastern wind pattern in some other modelling research.