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05 Jan 2021
05 Jan 2021
Abstract. Theoretical models of the Earth's atmosphere adhere to an underlying concept of flow driven by radiative transfer and the nature of the surface over which the flow is taking place: heat from the sun and/or anthropogenic sources are the sole sources of energy driving atmospheric constituent transport. However, another source of energy is prevalent in the human environment at the very local scale – the transfer of kinetic energy from moving vehicles to the atmosphere. We show that this source of energy, due to being co-located with combustion emissions, can influence their vertical distribution to the extent of having a significant influence on lower troposphere pollutant concentrations throughout North America. The effect of vehicle-induced turbulence on freshly emitted chemicals remains notable even when taking into account more complex urban radiative transfer-driven turbulence theories at high resolution. We have designed a parameterization to account for the at-source vertical transport of freshly emitted pollutants from mobile emissions resulting from vehicle-induced turbulence, in analogy to sub-grid-scale parameterizations for plume rise emissions from large stacks. This parameterization allows vehicle-induced turbulence to be represented at the scales inherent 3D chemical transport models, allowing its impact over large regions to be represented, without the need for the computational resources and much higher resolution of large eddy simulation models. Including this sub-grid-scale parameterization for the vertical transport of emitted pollutants due to vehicle-induced turbulence into a 3D chemical transport model of the atmosphere reduces pre-existing North American nitrogen dioxide biases by a factor of eight, and improves most model performance scores for nitrogen dioxide, particulate matter and ozone (for example, reductions in root mean square errors of 20, 9 and 0.5 percent, respectively).
Paul A. Makar et al.
Status: open (until 02 Mar 2021)
This study investigates the impact of kinetic energy from moving vehicles on the vertical distribution of combustion emissions and uses a VIT parameterization to account for the vertical transport of fresh mobile emissions in a 3D chemical transport model. This is an important topic as a better representation of vehicle emissions and mixing in atmospheric chemical transport models is crucial for an improved understanding of air pollutants. The manuscript is generally well written and aims to provide a way to improve mixing of mobile emissions in 3D regional modeling. Reasonable assumptions are made to parameterize vehicles with different sizes and running with distinct road conditions. However, the evaluation of the VIT parameterization is rather weak and there are a few major flaws in the manuscript.
Vinuesa and Vil.-Guerau de Arellano (2005) Atmos. Environ., 39(3), 445–461
Ouwersloot et al. (2011) Atmos. Chem. Phys., 11(20), 10681–10704
Li et al. (2016) J. Geophys. Res., 121(13), 8083-8105
Kim et al. (2016) Geophys. Res. Lett., 43(14), 7701–7708
As the VIT problem is actually on a LES scale and a LES model with chemistry has already taken into account turbulent mixing in the boundary layer, it might be more convincing to illustrate the impact of VIT on the vertical mixing of vehicle emissions if a LES model is employed.
Paul A. Makar et al.
Paul A. Makar et al.
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An interactive open-access journal of the European Geosciences Union