EGU26-9700, updated on 14 Mar 2026
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-9700
EGU General Assembly 2026
© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Poster | Thursday, 07 May, 14:00–15:45 (CEST), Display time Thursday, 07 May, 14:00–18:00
 
Hall X5, X5.31
Analyzing sector resolved sulfur dioxide emission source strengths and evaluation of TROPOMI identified point sources using the chemistry-climate model MECO(n) in the Middle East
Niclas Maier1, Eric Förster1, Halima Al Hinaai1, Heidi Huntrieser1, Falk Pätzold2, Lutz Bretschneider2, Astrid Lampert2, Anna Götz1, Anna Lanteri1, Mariano Mertens1,3, Anke Roiger1, and Anja Schmidt1,4
Niclas Maier et al.
  • 1Institut für Physik der Atmosphäre, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, Weßling, Germany
  • 2Institute of Flight Guidance, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany
  • 3Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, Section Operations & Environment, Delft University of Technology, Delft, the Netherlands
  • 4Meteorological Institute, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Munich, Germany

Sulfur dioxide (SO2) is a toxic air pollutant with far-reaching consequences for the environment and climate. Stricter regulations and technical developments reduced anthropogenic SO2 emissions in parts of the world such as Europe. However, emission inventories show a stagnation and disagreement in emission strengths in the Middle East in recent years. Additionally, many point sources in this region are attributed to the production of oil and gas, which now exceeds the SO2 emissions from the shipping sector after the introduction of the IMO2020 regulation in 2020.

In this study, we use data from the TROPOMI instrument on the Sentinel-5P satellite and the chemistry-climate model MECO(n) to localize strong SO2 point sources and to investigate the influence of different SO2 emission sectors like the shipping, oil and gas as well as the energy sector to the SO2 burden in this region. MECO(n) consists of the global chemistry-climate model EMAC (ECHAM5/MESSy) which is coupled online to one (or more) high-resolved COSMO (COSMO-CLM/MESSy) instances. EMAC is run with a horizontal resolution of ~120 km and 90 verticals levels reaching the mesosphere, while COSMO has a resolution of 25 km above the Middle East. The simulation period of 2017 to 2023 includes the introduction of IMO2020 and the COVID lockdown in 2020.    

First, a meteorological evaluation is performed against reanalysis data such as ERA5 and in situ observations from a helicopter-borne campaign conducted by us in the southern Arabian Peninsula in 2023. In addition, TROPOMI data from the years 2018 to 2023 are analyzed for seasonal changes in the SO2 point source magnitudes in the Middle East and compared to the simulated SO2 column densities from MECO(n) using the provided averaging kernels from TROPOMI. Additionally, a chemical evaluation is performed against available ground-based and in situ measurement data in this region. It was found that TROPOMI-identified SO2 point sources exhibit a huge seasonal variability notably in the Arabian Gulf, which has to be investigated and understood in more detail in the future. Furthermore, first results from our model simulations indicate that MECO(n) reflects the meteorological conditions reasonably well in the Middle East.

How to cite: Maier, N., Förster, E., Al Hinaai, H., Huntrieser, H., Pätzold, F., Bretschneider, L., Lampert, A., Götz, A., Lanteri, A., Mertens, M., Roiger, A., and Schmidt, A.: Analyzing sector resolved sulfur dioxide emission source strengths and evaluation of TROPOMI identified point sources using the chemistry-climate model MECO(n) in the Middle East, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-9700, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-9700, 2026.