Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
3.6 On Integrated Modelling of Air Quality Using
Information About Anthropogenic, Natural,
and Biogenic Emission Sources
M. Sofiev
1
, P. Siljamo
1
, M. Prank
1
, J. Vira
1
, J. Soares
1
, R. Vankevich
2
,
M. Lotjonen
1
, J. Koskinen
1
,
and J. Kukkonen
1
1
Finnish Meteorological Institute
2
Russian State Hydrometeorological University
Abstract
The paper presents the current status of chemical composition modelling
system SILAM. The system uses input information about anthropogenic, biogenic,
natural, and complex sources, such as wild-land fires. The system is an attempt to
combine the available knowledge on each of these terms in both retrospective and
operational senses and use it for re-analysis and forecasting the atmospheric
composition at various time scales. The three main inputs to the system are: the
anthropogenic emission databases with simple temporal disaggregation, biogenic
emission models for evaluating emission of natural aerosols and their precursors,
and the Fire Assimilation System (FAS) jointly developed by Finnish Meteoro-
logical Institute and Russian State Hydrometeorological University. FAS converts
the observed quantities - the pixel absolute temperature and radiative emissivity -
to emission fluxes via empirical emission factors. Information from all three
sources is consumed by the chemical transport model SILAM that is used in both
forecasting and re-analysis modes.
1. Introduction
A large variety of models for simulating atmospheric tracer gases and aerosols are
currently used in the areas, such as emergency preparedness, chemical composition,
air quality, stratospheric ozone, etc. (Saltbones et al., 1996; Maryon et al., 1991; Stohl
et al., 1998; Robertson et al., 1999; Sofiev et al., 2006, 2008; Damski et al., 2007).
It is currently accepted that different types of species and processes are inter-
connected and have to be considered together and with the appropriate interactions
with each other. However, the objective limitations of the current knowledge
about these interactions, as well as high computational costs largely reduce the
ability of the existing models to reflect the actual relations.
Current paper presents the status and capability of the atmospheric composition
and emergency modelling system SILAM, which represents one of attempts to
provide a unified platform for a wide variety of tasks.
