2015, Leimbach, Marian, Kriegler, Elmar, Roming, Niklas, Schwanitz, Jana

Global GDP projections for the 21st century are needed for the exploration of long-term global environmental problems, in particular climate change. Greenhouse gas emissions as well as climate change mitigation and adaption capacities strongly depend on growth of per capita income. However, long-term economic projections are highly uncertain. This paper provides five new long-term economic scenarios as part of the newly developed shared socio-economic pathways (SSPs) which represent a set of widely diverging narratives. A method of GDP scenario building is presented that is based on assumptions about technological progress, and human and physical capital formation as major drivers of long-term GDP per capita growth. The impact of these drivers differs significantly between different shared socio-economic pathways and is traced back to the underlying narratives and the associated population and education scenarios. In a highly fragmented world, technological and knowledge spillovers are low. Hence, the growth impact of technological progress and human capital is comparatively low, and per capita income diverges between world regions. These factors play a much larger role in globalization scenarios, leading to higher economic growth and stronger convergence between world regions. At the global average, per capita GDP is projected to grow annually in a range between 1.0% (SSP3) and 2.8% (SSP5) from 2010 to 2100. While this covers a large portion of variety in future global economic growth projections, plausible lower and higher growth projections may still be conceivable. The GDP projections are put into the context of historic patterns of economic growth (stylized facts), and their sensitivity to key assumptions is explored.

2014, Curci, G., Hogrefe, C., Bianconi, R., Im, U., Balzarini, A., Baró, R., Brunner, D., Forkel, R., Giordano, L., Hirtl, M., Honzak, L., Jiménez-Guerrero, P., Knote, C., Langer, M., Makar, P.A., Pirovano, G., Pérez, J.L., San José, R., Syrakov, D., Tuccella, P., Werhahn, J., Wolke, R., Žabkar, R., Zhang, J., Galmarini, S.

The calculation of aerosol optical properties from aerosol mass is a process subject to uncertainty related to necessary assumptions on the treatment of the chemical species mixing state, density, refractive index, and hygroscopic growth. In the framework of the AQMEII-2 model intercomparison, we used the bulk mass profiles of aerosol chemical species sampled over the locations of AERONET stations across Europe and North America to calculate the aerosol optical properties under a range of common assumptions for all models. Several simulations with parameters perturbed within a range of observed values are carried out for July 2010 and compared in order to infer the assumptions that have the largest impact on the calculated aerosol optical properties. We calculate that the most important factor of uncertainty is the assumption about the mixing state, for which we estimate an uncertainty of 30–35% on the simulated aerosol optical depth (AOD) and single scattering albedo (SSA). The choice of the core composition in the core–shell representation is of minor importance for calculation of AOD, while it is critical for the SSA. The uncertainty introduced by the choice of mixing state choice on the calculation of the asymmetry parameter is the order of 10%. Other factors of uncertainty tested here have a maximum average impact of 10% each on calculated AOD, and an impact of a few percent on SSA and g. It is thus recommended to focus further research on a more accurate representation of the aerosol mixing state in models, in order to have a less uncertain simulation of the related optical properties.

2015, Kecorius, Simonas, Kivekäs, Niku, Kristensson, Adam, Tuch, Thomas, Covert, David S., Birmili, Wolfram, Lihavainen, Heikki, Hyvärinen, Antti-Pekka, Martinsson, Johan, Sporre, Moa K., Swietlicki, Erik, Wiedensohler, Alfred, Ulevicius, Vidmantas

In this study, we evaluated 10 months data (September 2009 to June 2010) of atmospheric aerosol particle number size distribution at three atmospheric observation stations along the Baltic Sea coast: Vavihill (upwind, Sweden), Utö (upwind, Finland), and Preila (downwind, Lithuania). Differences in aerosol particle number size distributions between the upwind and downwind stations during situations of connected atmospheric flow, when the air passed each station, were used to assess the contribution of ship emissions to the aerosol number concentration (diameter interval 50–400 nm) in the Lithuanian background coastal environment. A clear increase in particle number concentration could be noticed, by a factor of 1.9 from Utö to Preila (the average total number concentration at Utö was 791 cm−3), and by a factor of 1.6 from Vavihill to Preila (the average total number concentration at Vavihill was 998 cm−3). The simultaneous measurements of absorption Ångström exponents close to unity at Preila supported our conclusion that ship emissions in the Baltic Sea contributed to the increase in particle number concentration at Preila.

2015, Zhang, S.L., Ma, N., Kecorius, S., Wang, P.C., Hu, M., Wang, Z.B., Größ, J., Wu, Z.J., Wiedensohler, A.

In this unique processing study, the mixing state of ambient submicron aerosol particles in terms of hygroscopicity and volatility was investigated with a Hygroscopicity Tandem Differential Mobility Analyzer and a Volatility Tandem Differential Mobility Analyzer. The measurements were conducted at a regional atmospheric observational site in the North China Plain (NCP) from 8 July to 9 August, 2013. Multimodal patterns were observed in the probability density functions of the hygroscopicity parameter κ and the shrink factor, indicating that ambient particles are mostly an external mixture of particles with different hygroscopicity and volatility. Linear relationships were found between the number fraction of hydrophobic and non-volatile populations, reflecting the dominance of soot in hydrophobic and non-volatile particles. The number fraction of non-volatile particles is lower than that of hydrophobic particles in most cases, indicating that a certain fraction of hydrophobic particles is volatile. Distinct diurnal patterns were found for the number fraction of the hydrophobic and non-volatile particles, with a higher level at nighttime and a lower level during the daytime. The result of air mass classification shows that aerosol particles in air masses coming from north with high moving speed have a high number fraction of hydrophobic/non-volatile population, and are more externally mixed. Only minor differences can be found between the measured aerosol properties for the rest of the air masses. With abundant precursor in the NCP, no matter where the air mass originates, as far as it stays in the NCP for a certain time, aerosol particles may get aged and mixed with newly emitted particles in a short time.

2014, Brunner, Dominik, Savage, Nicholas, Jorba, Oriol, Eder, Brian, Giordano, Lea, Badia, Alba, Balzarini, Alessandra, Baró, Rocío, Bianconi, Roberto, Chemel, Charles, Curci, Gabriele, Forkel, Renate, Jiménez-Guerrero, Pedro, Hirtl, Marcus, Hodzic, Alma, Honzak, Luka, Im, Ulas, Knote, Christoph, Makar, Paul, Manders-Groot, Astrid, van Meijgaard, Erik, Neal, Lucy, Pérez, Juan L., Pirovano, Guido, San Jose, Roberto, Schröder, Wolfram, Sokhi, Ranjeet S., Syrakov, Dimiter, Torian, Alfreida, Tuccella, Paolo, Werhahn, Johannes, Wolke, Ralf, Yahya, Khairunnisa, Zabkar, Rahela, Zhang, Yang, Hogrefe, Christian, Galmarini, Stefano

Air pollution simulations critically depend on the quality of the underlying meteorology. In phase 2 of the Air Quality Model Evaluation International Initiative (AQMEII-2), thirteen modeling groups from Europe and four groups from North America operating eight different regional coupled chemistry and meteorology models participated in a coordinated model evaluation exercise. Each group simulated the year 2010 for a domain covering either Europe or North America or both. Here were present an operational analysis of model performance with respect to key meteorological variables relevant for atmospheric chemistry processes and air quality. These parameters include temperature and wind speed at the surface and in the vertical profile, incoming solar radiation at the ground, precipitation, and planetary boundary layer heights. A similar analysis was performed during AQMEII phase 1 (Vautard et al., 2012) for offline air quality models not directly coupled to the meteorological model core as the model systems investigated here. Similar to phase 1, we found significant overpredictions of 10-m wind speeds by most models, more pronounced during night than during daytime. The seasonal evolution of temperature was well captured with monthly mean biases below 2 K over all domains. Solar incoming radiation, precipitation and PBL heights, on the other hand, showed significant spread between models and observations suggesting that major challenges still remain in the simulation of meteorological parameters relevant for air quality and for chemistry–climate interactions at the regional scale.

2015, Birmili, W.

Ultrafine particles (UFPs, diameter < 100 nm) have gained major attention in the environmental health discussion due to a number of suspected health effects. Observations of UFPs in urban air reveal the presence of several, time-dependent particle sources. In order to attribute measured UFP number concentrations to different source type contributions, we analyzed observations collected at a triplet of observation sites (roadside, urban background, rural) in the city of Leipzig, Germany. Photochemical new particle formation (NPF) events can be the overwhelming source of UFP particles on particular days, and were identified on the basis of characteristic patterns in the particle number size distribution data. A subsequent segmentation of the diurnal cycles of UFP concentration yielded a quantitative contribution of NPF events to daily, monthly, and annual mean values. At roadside, we obtained source contributions to the annual mean UFP number concentration (diameter range 5–100 nm) for photochemical NPF events (7%), local traffic (52%), diffuse urban sources (20%), and regional background (21%). The relative contribution of NPF events rises when moving away from roadside to the urban background and rural sites (14 and 30%, respectively). Their contribution also increases when considering only fresh UFPs (5–20 nm) (21% at the urban background site), and conversely decreases when considering UFPs at bigger sizes (20–100 nm) (8%). A seasonal analysis showed that NPF events have their greatest importance on UFP number concentration in the months May–August, accounting for roughly half of the fresh UFPs (5–20 nm) at the urban background location. The simplistic source apportionment presented here might serve to better characterize exposure to ambient UFPs in future epidemiological studies.

2015, Giordano, L., Brunner, D., Flemming, J., Hogrefe, C., Im, U., Bianconi, R., Badia, A., Balzarini, A., Baró, R., Hirtl, M., Honzak, L., Jorba, O., Knote, C., Kuenen, J.J.P., Makar, P.A., Manders-Groot, A., Neal, L., Pérez, J.L., Pirovano, G., Pouliot, G., San José, R., Savage, N., Schröder, W., Sokhi, R.S., Syrakov, D., Torian, A., Tuccella, P., Werhahn, J., Wolke, R., Yahya, K., Žabkar, R., Zhang, Y., Galmarini, S.

The Air Quality Model Evaluation International Initiative (AQMEII) has now reached its second phase which is dedicated to the evaluation of online coupled chemistry-meteorology models. Sixteen modeling groups from Europe and five from North America have run regional air quality models to simulate the year 2010 over one European and one North American domain. The MACC re-analysis has been used as chemical initial (IC) and boundary conditions (BC) by all participating regional models in AQMEII-2. The aim of the present work is to evaluate the MACC re-analysis along with the participating regional models against a set of ground-based measurements (O3, CO, NO, NO2, SO2, SO42−) and vertical profiles (O3 and CO). Results indicate different degrees of agreement between the measurements and the MACC re-analysis, with an overall better performance over the North American domain. The influence of BC on regional air quality simulations is analyzed in a qualitative way by contrasting model performance for the MACC re-analysis with that for the regional models. This approach complements more quantitative approaches documented in the literature that often have involved sensitivity simulations but typically were limited to only one or only a few regional scale models. Results suggest an important influence of the BC on ozone for which the underestimation in winter in the MACC re-analysis is mimicked by the regional models. For CO, it is found that background concentrations near the domain boundaries are rather close to observations while those over the interior of the two continents are underpredicted by both MACC and the regional models over Europe but only by MACC over North America. This indicates that emission differences between the MACC re-analysis and the regional models can have a profound impact on model performance and points to the need for harmonization of inputs in future linked global/regional modeling studies.

2015, Schladitz, Alexander, Leníček, Jan, Beneš, Ivan, Kováč, Martin, Skorkovský, Jiří, Soukup, Aleš, Jandlová, Jana, Poulain, Laurent, Plachá, Helena, Löschau, Gunter, Wiedensohler, Alfred

A comprehensive air quality study has been carried out at two urban background sites in Annaberg-Buchholz (Germany) and Ústí nad Labem (Czech Republic) in the German–Czech border region between January 2012 and June 2014. Special attention was paid to quantify harmful fractions of particulate matter (PM) and ultrafine particle number concentration (UFP) from solid fuel combustion and vehicular traffic. Source type contributions of UFP were quantified by using the daily concentration courses of UFP and nitrogen oxide. Two different source apportionment techniques were used to quantify relative and absolute mass contributions: positive matrix factorization for total PM2.5 and elemental carbon in PM2.5 and chemical mass balance for total PM1 and organic carbon in PM1. Contributions from solid fuel combustion strongly differed between the non-heating period (April–September) and the heating period (October–March). Major sources of solid fuel combustion in this study were wood and domestic coal combustion, while the proportion of industrial coal combustion was low (<3%). In Ústí nad Labem combustion of domestic brown coal was the most important source of organic carbon ranging from 34% to 43%. Wood combustion was an important source of organic carbon in Annaberg-Buchholz throughout the year. Heavy metals and less volatile polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) in the accumulation mode were related to solid fuel combustion with enhanced concentrations during the heating period. In contrast, vehicular PAH emissions were allocated to the Aitken mode. Only in Ústí nad Labem a significant contribution of photochemical new particle formation (e.g. from sulfur dioxide) to UFP of almost 50% was observed during noontime. UFPs from traffic emissions (nucleation particles) and primary emitted soot particles dominated at both sites during the rest of the day. The methodology of a combined source apportionment of UFP and PM can be adapted to other regions of the world with similar problems of atmospheric pollution to calculate the relative risk in epidemiological health studies for different sub-fractions of PM and UFP. This will enhance the meaningfulness of published relative risks in health studies based on total PM and UFP number concentrations..

2014, Schrödner, R., Tilgner, A., Wolke, R., Herrmann, H.

A reduced version of the complex aqueous phase mechanism CAPRAM3.0i (C3.0RED) was used in the regional chemistry transport model COSMO–MUSCAT in a 2-D application. Besides sulfate and nitrate production, the mechanism treats a complex HOx-chemistry, transition metal ion chemistry and organic species up to C4. The effects of the cloud chemistry on the chemical composition of air and particles were investigated. Sensitivity studies were conducted for an urban and a rural air mass. For this purpose simulations with C3.0RED were compared to ones with a simple inorganic aqueous phase mechanism (INORG) and without aqueous phase chemistry. A reduction of the gas phase concentrations of major oxidants was observed especially in the urban environment. Compared to INORG, C3.0RED is always more acidic leading to shifts in several chemical subsystems, (e.g. production of sulfate). Using C3.0RED instead of INORG, differences in sulfate mass of 3% to −15% occurred. The modeled O/C-ratio tends to be higher than observations as C3.0RED does not consider the whole population of organics and no insoluble organic mass. Nevertheless, the modeled concentration of glyoxalic acid is in the range of atmospheric measurements in both environments, whereas oxalic acid and pyruvic acid are underestimated in the urban case.