UP2.2

While overall the global warming with the causes and global processes connected to well-mixed CO2, and its impacts on global to continental scales are well understood with a high level of confidence, there are knowledge gaps concerning the impact of many other non-CO2 radiative forcers leading to low confidence in the conclusions. This relates mainly to specific anthropogenic and natural precursor emissions of short-lived GHGs and aerosols and their precursors. These gaps and uncertainties also exist in their subsequent effects on atmospheric chemistry and climate, through direct emissions dependent on changes in e.g., agriculture production and technologies based on scenarios for future development as well as feedbacks of global warming on emissions, e.g., permafrost thaw. In addition to the atmospheric radiative forcing (gaseous or aerosols), albedo changes connected to land use and land cover can play a role, depending on the adaptation or mitigation measures included in different scenarios.

Thus, the main goal of the new EC Horizon Europe project FOCI (accepted within the call HORIZON-CL5-2021-D1-01-0 Improved understanding of greenhouse gas fluxes and radiative forcers, including carbon dioxide removal technologies), which will be presented, is to assess the impact of key radiative forcers, where and how they arise, the processes of their impact on the climate system, to find and test an efficient implementation of these processes into global Earth System Models and into Regional Climate Models, eventually coupled with CTMs, and finally to use the tools developed to investigate mitigation and/or adaptation policies incorporated in selected scenarios of future development targeted at Europe and other regions of the world. We will develop new regionally tuned scenarios based on improved emissions to assess the effects of non-CO2 forcers. Mutual interactions of the results and climate services producers and other end-users will provide feedbacks for the specific scenarios preparation and potential application to support the decision making, including climate policy.

How to cite: Halenka, T. and Sokhi, R.: Non-CO2 Forcers and Their Climate, Weather, Air Quality and Health Impacts – New Project FOCI, EMS Annual Meeting 2022, Bonn, Germany, 5–9 Sep 2022, EMS2022-699, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2022-699, 2022.

Routine ambient air quality monitoring is mandated by U.S. federal law, but many regions of the U.S. are sparsely monitored due in part to the high cost of regulatory monitors.  Low-cost sensors can fill data gaps when it is neither feasible nor cost-effective to expand regulatory monitoring networks.  Initial comparisons of ambient measurements from the PurpleAir PA-II sensor – a low-cost (<$300 USD) and commercially available sensor that measures fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) using a laser particle counter – with nearby (~2 km) regulatory PM_2.5 monitors maintained by the Asheville Buncombe Air Quality Agency in Asheville, North Carolina, indicate general agreement.  Continuous data collection began in January 2022, thus capturing a range of atmospheric conditions and seasonal changes in PM_2.5 concentrations.  High water vapor content is known to affect the performance of optical particle counters such as the PA-II, so additional summertime measurements may reveal persistent biases in air quality measurements in these conditions.

The PA-II sensor also measures temperature, relative humidity, and barometric pressure.  Preliminary analyses compare the sensor’s measurements of these environmental variables to co-located research-grade meteorological instrumentation, including Campbell Scientific, Inc. 107 and 109 temperature probes, a Vaisala HMP45C temperature and relative humidity probe, and a Vaisala PTB101B barometer. Results reveal an expected high temperature bias of several degrees Fahrenheit caused by the small amount of heat generated by the electronics contained in the PA-II’s housing. A low relative humidity bias is a consequence of the temperature performance. Barometric pressure measurements from the PA-II sensor are consistently high by about 2-3 hPa.

How to cite: Couzo, E. and Godfrey, C.: A comparison of the PurpleAir PA-II sensor to both regulatory particulate matter monitors and meteorological instrumentation in Asheville, North Carolina, EMS Annual Meeting 2022, Bonn, Germany, 5–9 Sep 2022, EMS2022-289, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2022-289, 2022.

The Covid-Pandemic determines social life since the beginning of 2020. Several lockdowns forced people to reduce their social contacts, especially private contacts during their spare time. For fear of infection, some people even reduced their contacts over the whole time of the pandemic. The global virus pandemic is characterised by seasonal waves with periodically increasing and decreasing incidence. This periodic variability depends on many factors. Of central relevance are all kinds of social meetings and gatherings.  Covid-19 is an airborne disease and, hence, indoor meetings and activities without masks pose a significant higher risk of infection than outdoor meetings. The decision to meet indoors or outdoors depends largely on the waether -- amongst other parameters such as the kind of activity (sport, picnic, cooking, gaming, singing) or the composition and background of the  group (band, sports group, study group, students, parents with kids). The type of outdoor activity is strongly dependent on the weather.

In a two-way approach of surveys and data analysis, we want to find out how weather parameters such as temperature, wind, precipitation, cloudiness, etc. influence the decision to meet indoors or outdoors. On the one hand, surveys and interviews of students give insight into the special situation oft he social life of students during the pandemic. On the other hand, DWD weather observations of several German cities, contact data and infections numbers are statistically analysed in order to detect possible relationships between the parameters. In this work, we will present first results of this recently started project.

How to cite: Schielicke, L., Bohmann, M., and Ertz, P.: Changes of social contacts due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the dependence on weather parameters, EMS Annual Meeting 2022, Bonn, Germany, 5–9 Sep 2022, EMS2022-604, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2022-604, 2022.