AS3.7

Eleven billion tons of plastic are projected to accumulate in the environment by 2025. Because plastics are persistent, they fragment into pieces that are susceptible to wind entrainment. Using high resolution spatial and temporal data we tested whether plastics deposited wet versus dry have unique atmospheric life histories. Further, we report on the rates and sources of deposition to remote U.S. conservation areas. We show that urban centers and resuspension from soils or water are important sources for wet deposition. In contrast, plastics deposited dry were smaller in size and rates were related to indices that suggest longer range or global transport. Deposition rates averaged 132 plastics m^-2 day^-1 amounting to > 1000 tons of plastic deposition to western U.S. protected lands annually.

How to cite: Brahney, J., Hallerud, M., Heim, E., Hahnenberger, M., and Sukumaran, S.: Wet and dry plastic deposition in the western United States, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-16331, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-16331, 2021.

Since the first reports on the presence of plastic debris in the marine environment in the early 70s (1), plastics have been steadily accumulating in the environment. The global production of plastics in 2019 reached 368 Mt (from 311 Mt in 2014 and 225 Mt in 2004), with the largest portion produced in Asia (51%) (2), whereas 10% is believed to end into the sea every year (3). As a result, plastics have been confirmed today in several freshwater (4), and terrestrial (5) ecosystems; they fragment into microplastics (MPs, 1 µm to 5 mm) (6) and nanoplastics (<1µm) (7) via physical processes (8). MP present has been now confirmed from the Alps (9) and the Pyrenees (10), as far as Antarctica (11) and the high Arctic (9). Consequently, MPs have been found to
affect coral reefs (12), marine (13) and terrestrial animals (14). Schwabl et al. (15) detected them in human stool, while a recent study by Ragusa et al. (16) reported that MPs were even found in all placental portions.
A smaller fraction of MPs originates from road traffic emissions (17). Kole et al. (18) reported global average emissions of tire wear particles (TWPs) of 0.81 kg year-1 per capita, about 6.1 million tonnes (~1.8% of total plastic production). Emissions of brake wear particles (BWPs) add another 0.5 million tonnes. TWPs and BWPs are produced via mechanical abrasion and corrosion (19). Here, we present global trends in emissions, transport and deposition of road MPs.

References:
1. Colton, J. B., et al. Science (80). 185, 491–497 (1974).
2. PlasticsEurope. https://www.plasticseurope.org/en/resources/market-data (2019).
3. Mattsson, K., et al. Impacts 17, 1712–1721 (2015).
4. Blettler, M. C. M., et al.Water Res. 143, 416–424 (2018).
5. Chae, Y. & An, Y. J. Environ. Pollut. 240, 387–395 (2018).
6. Peeken, I. et al. Nat. Commun. 9, (2018).
7. Wagner, S. & Reemtsma, T. Nat. Nanotechnol. 14, 300–301 (2019).
8. Gewert, B., et al. Environ. Sci. Process. Impacts 17, 1513–1521 (2015).
9. Bergmann, M. et al. Sci. Adv. 5, 1–11 (2019).
10. Allen, S. et al. Nat. Geosci. 12, 339–344 (2019).
11. González-Pleiter, M. et al. Mar. Pollut. Bull. 161, 1–6 (2020).
12. Lamb, J. B. et al. P Science (80-. ). 359, 460–462 (2018).
13. Wilcox, C., et al. Sci. Rep. 8, 1–11 (2018).
14. Harne, R. J. Anim. Res. 383–386 (2019) doi:10.30954/2277-940x.02.2019.25.
15. Schwabl, P. et al. Ann. Intern. Med. 171, 453–457 (2019).
16. Ragusa, A. et al. Environ. Int. 146, 106274 (2021).
17. Schwarz, A. E., et al. Mar. Pollut. Bull. 143, 92–100 (2019).
18. Jan Kole, P., et al. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 14, 1–4 (2017).
19. Penkała, M., et al. Environments 5, 9 (2018).

How to cite: Evangeliou, N., Grythe, H., Kylling, A., and Stohl, A.: Global emission, atmospheric transport and deposition trends of microplastics originating from road traffic, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-16513, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-16513, 2021.

In April 2017, the A-LIFE aircraft field experiment (Absorbing aerosol layers in a changing climate: aging, lifetime and dynamics; (www.a-life.at) was carried out in the Eastern Mediterranean. The overall goal of the ERC-funded A-LIFE project is to investigate the properties of mixtures of absorbing aerosols (in particular mineral dust and black carbon) during their atmospheric lifetime to gather a new data set of key parameters of absorbing aerosol mixtures, to investigate their microphysical and optical properties, and to study potential links between the presence of absorbing particles, aerosol layer lifetime and particle removal.

In 22 research flights (~80 flight hours), several outbreaks of Saharan and Arabian dust, as well as pollution, biomass burning, and dust-impacted clouds were studied, and a unique aerosol and cloud data set was collected. During a number of flights, coordinated observations including overflights of the ground-based sites in Cyprus (Limassol, Paphos, Agia Marina), Crete (Finokalia), and over Austria (Vienna, Sonnblick Observatory) were performed. The A-LIFE campaign was carried out in close coordination with the 18-month field observations conducted in the framework of CyCARE (October 2016 – March 2018) organized by the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research, and with the PreTECT initiative of the National Observatory of Athens.

To perform source apportionment, the Lagrangian transport and dispersion model FLEXPART (FLEXible PARTicle dispersion model) version 8.2 was used. Based on FLEXPART model results and aerosol measurements, the observations were classified into 12 aerosol types including background aerosol, clean and polluted mixtures without coarse mode aerosol as well as three sub-classes (clean, moderately-polluted and polluted) for Saharan dust, Arabian dust and mixtures with coarse mode. For each of the 12 aerosol classes, microphysical and optical aerosol properties were derived. One surprising finding of A-LIFE is that scattering properties of polluted dust aerosol do not show the typical dust signature, but rather show a wavelength-dependency of the scattering coefficient.

We will give an overview of the A-LIFE field experiment and available data sets, compare the properties of the different aerosol mixtures, and discuss the question which aerosol component (natural vs. anthropogenic) dominates the properties in mixed aerosols. We will also compare the A-LIFE dust observations with results from other field experiments (SAMUM, SALTRACE, ATom).

Acknowledgements: This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 640458 (A-LIFE). Two EUFAR projects clustered with A-LIFE provided funding for 16 additional flight hours. We would also like to thank the University of Vienna, LMU and DLR for a significant amount of funding for instrumentation, aircraft certification costs, extra flight hours and aircraft allocation days.

How to cite: Weinzierl, B. and the A-LIFE Science Team: The A-LIFE field experiment in the Eastern Mediterranean - Overview and selected highlights, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-16129, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-16129, 2021.

Black carbon (BC) particles originate from incomplete combustion of biomass and fossil fuels. They are known to contribute to the warming of Earth’s climate due to radiative effects and aerosol-cloud interactions. The lifetime of sub-micron BC in the troposphere is in the order of days-weeks. Through interaction with other airborne compounds, the hydrophobic nature of BC gradually becomes more hygroscopic and thus available as CCN.

An assessment of the large-scale impact on clouds and climate requires detailed insights about the lifecycle of BC in the atmosphere, understanding sources for BC, transport, transformation, and removal processes. All these processes are tightly linked to particle size, making knowledge regarding how BC distributes over a given size range substantial.

In a previous study we explored statistical methods to attribute BC mass according to particle size (in review). Combining these results with cluster analysis of long term record of aerosol number size distribution (NSD) observations from Zeppelin Observatory it was shown that the method produced reasonable results for a majority of observations. However, the cluster characteristic of NSD associated with high level of pollution presented additional challenges as the methodological approach gave an unrealistic average BC size distribution.

In the current study we focus on these inconsistencies; additional analytical methods are introduced to resolve source-receptor relationships, defining transport characteristics using extensive trajectory analysis. The analysis provides insights of the processes along the travel path to the receptor location and resolves key transport routes for the BC fraction to the Arctic.

How to cite: Cremer, R., Tunved, P., Partridge, D., and Ström, J.: Sources and Transport of Black Carbon number size distribution at Zeppelin Observatory, Svalbard, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-7646, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-7646, 2021.

Improving air quality is an important driving force for China’s move toward clean energy. Since 2017, the “coal-to-gas” and “coal-to-electricity” strategies have been extensively implemented in northern China, aiming at reducing dispersed coal consumption and related air pollution by promoting the use of clean and low-carbon fuels. Our analyses show that on top of meteorological influences, the effective emission mitigation measures achieved an average decrease of fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) concentrations of ∼14% in Beijing and surrounding areas (the “2+26” pilot cities) in winter 2017 compared to the same period of 2016, where the dispersed coal control measures contributed ∼60% of the total PM_2.5 reductions. However, the localized air quality improvement was accompanied by a contemporaneous ∼15% upsurge of PM_2.5 concentrations over large areas in southern China. We find that the pollution transfer that resulted from a shift in emissions was of a high likelihood caused by a natural gas shortage in the south due to the coal-to-gas transition in the north. The overall shortage of natural gas greatly jeopardized the air quality benefits of the coal-to-gas strategy in winter 2017 and reflects structural challenges and potential threats in China’s clean-energy transition. Our finding highlights the importance and necessity of synergy between environmental and energy policymaking to address the grand challenge of an actionable future to achieve the cobenefits of air quality, human health, and climate.

How to cite: Wang, S., Su, H., Chen, C., Tao, W., Streets, D., Lu, Z., Zheng, B., Carmichael, G., Lelieveld, J., Pöschl, U., and Cheng, Y.: Natural gas shortages during the “coal-to-gas” transition in China have caused a large redistribution of air pollution in winter 2017, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-15706, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-15706, 2021.

An air pollution process in Jiangsu Province, China on December 22–23, 2016 is discussed by analyzing various data set, including the meteorological observation data, the reanalysis data from National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), the Air Quality Index (AQI), the PM_2.5 and PM₁₀ concentrations data, and the airflow backward trajectory model of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The results show that the air pollution episode was under the background of a medium cold front from the west of the Hetao area, and caused by regional transport of pollutants from North China. The primary pollutant was PM_2.5 and PM₁₀. The PM_2.5 and PM₁₀ concentrations increase significantly 4–6 h after the cold front passing and reached the peak in 13–24 h. The obvious lag phenomena of the rising period and the peak-moment of PM_2.5 and PM₁₀ concentrations were found at the Suzhou, Huai'an, Taizhou and Xuzhou stations, and the maximum of 3h-allobaric, the maximum and average values of the wind speed near the ground were larger one by one at the four stations respectively in the northwestern Jiangsu, north-central Jiangsu, along with the Yangtze river Jiangsu, and southeastern Jiangsu. The period of middle –heave level pollution in Suzhou was 7–9 h later than in Huai'an and Taizhou, and was 24 h later than in Xuzhou, because of the lower PM_2.5 and PM₁₀ concentrations at early December 21, the delay of pollutants from upstream, and the larger wind speed from the boundary layer to the surface in southeastern Jiangsu. WRF-Chem model can well reveal the pollutant transport process. The high-value zone has a close relationship with the position of cold front. At 1200 LST on December 22, the cold front reached Xuzhou accompanied by high PM_2.5 concentration. At 1400 LST on December 22, the cold front advanced to Huai'an. The high PM_2.5 concentration zone moved south alongside the cold front and covered Xuzhou and Huai'an. Suzhou, far away from the upstream, was less vulnerable to pollutant transport. The high-value did not fell until the northwest wind shifted to the north wind. The backward trajectory analysis of air pollution also indicated that regional transport of pollutants from North China led to the middle –heave level pollution weather.

How to cite: Liu, D., Gu, P., and Qian, J.: Cold Fronts Transport Features of North China Pollutant over the Yangtze River Delta, China, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-7854, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-7854, 2021.

Black carbon (BC) affects the radiation budget of the Earth by absorbing solar radiation, darkening snow and ice covers, and influencing cloud formation and life cycle. Modelling BC in remote regions, such as the Arctic, has large inter-model variability which causes variation in the modelled aerosol effect over the Arctic. This variability can be due to differences in the transport of aerosol species which is affected by how wet deposition is modelled.

In this study we developed an aerosol size-resolved in-cloud wet deposition scheme for liquid and ice clouds for models which use a size-segregated aerosol description. This scheme was tested in the ECHAM-HAMMOZ global aerosol-climate model. The scheme was compared to the original wet deposition scheme which uses fixed scavenging coefficients for different sized particles. The comparison included vertical profiles and mass and number wet deposition fluxes, and it showed that the current scheme produced spuriously long BC lifetimes when compared to the estimates made in other studies. Thus, to find a better setup for simulating aerosol lifetimes and vertical profiles we conducted simulations where we altered the aerosol emission distribution and hygroscopicity.

We compared the modelled BC vertical profiles to the ATom aircraft campaign measurements. In addition, we compared the aerosol lifetimes against those from AEROCOM model means. We found that, without further tuning, the current scheme overestimates the BC concentrations and lifetimes more than the fixed scavenging scheme when compared to the measurements. Sensitivity studies showed that the model skill of reproducing the measured vertical BC mass concentrations improved when BC emissions were directed to larger size classes, they were mixed with soluble compounds during emission, or BC-containing particles were transferred to soluble size classes after aging. These changes also produced atmospheric BC lifetimes which were closer to AEROCOM model means. The best comparison with the measured vertical profiles and estimated BC lifetimes was when BC was mixed with soluble aerosol compounds during emission.

How to cite: Holopainen, E., Kokkola, H., Laakso, A., and Kühn, T.: In-cloud scavenging scheme for sectional aerosol modules – implementation in the framework of the Sectional Aerosol module for Large Scale Applications version 2.0 (SALSA2.0) global aerosol module, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-15018, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-15018, 2021.

This paper presents the development and application of a numerical Lagrangian model of the transport of aerosol particles in the urban boundary layer of the atmosphere with a high spatial resolution. The development of the model is motivated by the limited measurement methods for observing aerosol concentrations in urban environments, both in terms of coverage density and in terms of accuracy and representativeness. The growing interest of the world community in the problems of monitoring air pollution in cities and the atmospheric distribution of biologically active aerosols also became a motivating factor.

The model uses the equation of motion to calculate the trajectory of a particle suspended in the air. It is based on Newton's second law and takes into account the forces of gravity, buoyancy and air resistance. The influence of stochastic turbulent eddies on the particle motion is taken into account in the model by using turbulent parameterizations. The effect of turbulence is important when describing the motion of particles in this model, since aerosols have a size much smaller than the grid step of the input data and can stay inside one cell for a long time, being under the influence of subgrid vortices. In this model, three parameterizations are implemented: a simple Gaussian model, a random displacement model, and a random walk model. In all three, the pulsation velocity component is a normally distributed random variable, but in the first two parameterizations it is generated at each time step of the Lagrangian model. In the last one, the interaction time of the particle with the turbulent vortex is introduced, during which the pulsation velocity component acting on the particle remains constant, characterizing the effect of a particular vortex. Additionally, a version of the model based on the Langevin equation has been implemented to more accurately account for the effect of turbulence on particle motion.

The developed numerical model is implemented in a program code in the C++ programming language and allows one to calculate individual trajectories of motion and concentrations of particles. Input data (wind speed components, turbulence characteristics and others) can be set analytically or imported from hydrodynamic models.

The model has been successfully tested and verified on several idealized analytical solutions – an equivalence is obtained in terms of the concentration field. Experiments have also been carried out to reproduce the transport of particles in a series of urban canyons, including particles with a finite half-life that simulate the COVID-19 virions (SARS-CoV-2). Based on the results of the calculations, the influence of stratification, particle size and lifetime on the transport of aerosols in a typical urban environment was estimated.

The work is partially supported by RFBR grants 18-05-60126 and 19-05-50110.

How to cite: Varentsov, A., Stepanenko, V., and Mortikov, E.: Numerical simulation of particle transport in the boundary layer with implications for SARS-CoV-2 virions distribution in urban environments, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-16126, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-16126, 2021.

The identification of the baseline is an important task in inverse modeling of greenhouse gases, as it represents the influence of atmospheric chemistry and transport and surface fluxes from outside the inversion domain, or flux contributions prior to the length of the backward calculation for Lagrangian models. When modeling halocarbons, observation-based approaches are often used to calculate the baseline, although model-based approaches are an alternative. Model-based methods need global unbiased fields of mixing ratios of the observed species, which are not always easy to get and which need to be interfaced with the model used for the inversion. To find the best way to identify the baseline and to investigate whether the usage of observation-based approaches is suitable for inverse modeling of halocarbons, we use and analyze a model-based and two frequently used observation-based methods to determine the baseline and investigate their influence on inversion results. The model-based method couples global fields of mixing ratios with backwards-trajectories at their point of termination. We simulate those global fields with a Lagrangian particle dispersion model, FLEXPART_CTM, that uses a nudging routine to relax model data to observed values. The second method under investigation is the robust estimation of baseline signal (REBS) method, that is purely based on statistical analysis of observations. The third analyzed method is also primarily observation-based, but uses model information to subtract prior simulated mixing ratios from selected observations. We apply those three methods to sulfur hexafluoride (SF₆) and use the Bayesian inversion framework FLEXINVERT for the inverse modeling and the Lagrangian particle dispersion model FLEXPART to calculate the source-receptor-relationship used in the inversion.

How to cite: Vojta, M., Thompson, R., Groot Zwaaftink, C., and Stohl, A.: Inverse modeling of halocarbons: sensitivity to the baseline definition, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-4029, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-4029, 2021.

Synthetic greenhouse gases contribute currently about 10% to anthropogenic radiative forcing, and their future impact depends on the replacement of compounds with long lifetimes by compounds with short lifetimes and negligible global warming potential (GWP). Furthermore, chlorine and bromine-containing synthetic gases are the drivers of stratospheric ozone destruction. Therefore, observing the atmospheric abundance of synthetic gases and quantifying their emission sources is critical for predicting their related future impacts and assuring successful regulation.

Regional-scale atmospheric inverse modeling can provide observation-based estimates of greenhouse gas emissions at a country and continental scale and, consequently, support the process of forecasting and regulation. Inverse modeling is based on three main components: Source sensitivities derived from atmospheric transport models, observations, and an inversion framework. Within the Swiss National Science Foundation project IHALOME (Innovation in Halocarbon Measurements and Emission Validation) we increase the spatial resolution of the Lagrangian particle dispersion model FLEXPART-COSMO from 7 km to 1 km in order to enhance localization of Swiss halocarbon emissions based on newly available observations from the Swiss Plateau at the Beromünster tall tower. The transport model is driven by the meteorological fields of the regional numerical weather prediction model (NWP) COSMO run at MeteoSwiss.

The higher-resolution model exhibits increased three-dimensional dispersion, and as a result, is unable to reproduce the variability seen in the observations and in the 7 km model at the tall tower site Beromünster for a well-studied validation tracer (methane). Because the TKE (Turbulent Kinetic Energy) values do not differ significantly between the two model versions, head-to-head comparisons of parameterized turbulence cannot fully explain the concentration discrepancies. Comparisons of wind fluctuations resolved on the grid-scale suggest that the dispersion differences may originate from a duplication of turbulent transport, on the one hand, covered by the high-resolution grid of the Eulerian model and, on the other hand diagnosed by FLEXPART's turbulence scheme. In an attempt to tune FLEXPART-COSMO’s turbulence scheme at high resolution, we scale FLEXPART's parameterized turbulence so it matches the TKE computed in COSMO. Test simulations with the scaled FLEXPART turbulence show remarkable improvements in the high-resolution model's ability to predict the observed tracer variability and concentration at the Beromünster tall tower. We further introduce new equations in FLEXPART's turbulence scheme for each component of the variations of the winds in order to mimic the TKE produced by the turbulence scheme of COSMO and hence resolve the part of the turbulence spectrum which is unresolved by the high-resolution model. Compared to the coarse resolution simulations, simulations with scaled turbulence result in a more realistic and pronounced diurnal cycle of the tracer and overall improved correlation with observations.

Concluding, the increasing resolution of NWP models may lead to the representation of the part of the turbulence spectrum by the models themselves. In these models, big eddies (most likely related to convection) are partly resolved and do not require additional parameterization. The turbulence schemes of the past, developed for coarse resolution models, should be revisited to include this effect.

How to cite: Katharopoulos, I., Rust, D., Vollmer, M. K., Reimann, S., Emmenegger, L., Brunner, D., and Henne, S.: The impact of turbulence parameterization in high-resolution inverse modeling of synthetic greenhouse gases with the Lagrangian particle dispersion model FLEXPART-COSMO, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-7131, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-7131, 2021.

A robust result of climate model simulations is the moistening of the stratosphere.
Many models show their strongest changes in stratospheric water vapor in the extratropical lowermost stratosphere, a change which could have substantial climate feedbacks (e.g. Banerjee et al. 2019). However, models are also heavily wet-biased in this region when compared to observations (Keeble et al. 2020), presenting some uncertainty on the robustness of these model results.

In this study, we investigate the contribution of the choice of model transport scheme to this wet bias using a climate model (EMAC) coupled with two transport schemes: the standard EMAC flux-form semi-Lagrangian (FFSL) scheme and the fully-Lagrangian scheme of CLaMS. This experiment has the advantage of analytical clarity in that the dynamical fields driving both transport schemes are identical. Prior work using this tool has shown large differences in transport timecales within the extratropical lowermost stratosphere depending on the transport scheme used (Charlesworth et al. 2020). 

These results also suggested that EMAC-CLaMS should reduce the transport of water vapor into this region, but calculations of water vapor fields using this tool were not performed until now. We present the results of that work, comparing the water vapor fields calculated using EMAC-CLaMS and EMAC-FFSL online. Two model simulations were performed, wherein each water vapor field was used to drive radiation calculations, such that the radiative consequences of applying one transport scheme or the other could be assessed.

References:

Banerjee, A., Chiodo, G., Previdi, M. et al. Stratospheric water vapor: an important climate feedback. Clim Dyn 53, 1697–1710 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-019-04721-4

Keeble, J., Hassler, B., Banerjee, A., Checa-Garcia, R., Chiodo, G., Davis, S., Eyring, V., Griffiths, P. T., Morgenstern, O., Nowack, P., Zeng, G., Zhang, J., Bodeker, G., Cugnet, D., Danabasoglu, G., Deushi, M., Horowitz, L. W., Li, L., Michou, M., Mills, M. J., Nabat, P., Park, S., and Wu, T.: Evaluating stratospheric ozone and water vapor changes in CMIP6 models from 1850–2100, Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss. [preprint], https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2019-1202, in review, 2020. 

Charlesworth, E. J., Dugstad, A.-K., Fritsch, F., Jöckel, P., and Plöger, F.: Impact of Lagrangian transport on lower-stratospheric transport timescales in a climate model, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 15227–15245, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-15227-2020, 2020. 

How to cite: Charlesworth, E., Plöger, F., and Jöckel, P.: Impact of Lagrangian transport on lower-stratospheric water vapor and radiative balance in a climate model, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-7571, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-7571, 2021.