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Within the framework of a large urban meteorology program recently launched in Canada, the Montreal Urban Snow Experiment (MUSE) campaign has been conducted in order to document the thermoradiative exchanges in a densely built-up area of Montreal in late winter and spring conditions. The targeted period is of particular scientific interest because it covers the transition period from a mainly snow-covered urban environment to a mainly snow-free environment. The campaign is based on four weeks of observations from 17 March to 14 April 2005. It couples automatic and continuous measurements of radiation and turbulent fluxes, radiative surface temperatures, and air temperature and humidity with manual observations performed during intensive observation periods to supplement the surface temperature observations and to characterize the snow properties. The footprints of radiation and turbulent flux measurements are computed using the surface-sensor-sun urban model and the flux-source area model, respectively. The analysis of the radiometer footprint underscores the difficulty of correctly locating this type of instrument in urban environments, so that the sensor sees a representative combination of the urban and nonurban surfaces. Here, the alley contribution to the upward radiation tends to be overestimated to the detriment of the road contribution. The turbulent footprints cover homogeneous zones in terms of surface characteristics, whatever the wind direction. The initial analysis of the energy balance displays the predominance of the residual term (Q Res ϭ Q* Ϫ Q H Ϫ Q E ) in comparison with the turbulent sensible (Q H ) and latent (Q E ) heat fluxes, since its daytime contribution exceeds 50% of the net radiation (Q*). The investigation of energy balances observed at the beginning and at the end of the experiment (i.e., with and without snow) also indicates that the snow plays a significant role in the flux partitioning and the daily pattern of fluxes. Without snow, the energy balance is characteristic of energy balances that have been already observed in densely built-up areas, notably because of the hysteresis observed for Q Res and Q H in relation to Q* and because of the high contribution of Q Res , which includes the effect of heat storage inside the urban structures. With snow, the flux partitioning is modified by the snowmelt process leading to contributions of the residual term and latent heat flux, which are larger than in the case without snow to the detriment of the sensible heat flux.

Regulatory requirements for renewable content in diesel fuel have been adopted in Canada. Fatty acid alkyl esters, that is, biodiesel, will likely be used to meet the regulations. However, the impacts on ambient atmospheric pollutant concentrations and human health outcomes associated with the use of biodiesel fuel blends in heavy duty diesel vehicles across Canada have not been evaluated. The objective of this study was to assess the potential human health implications of the widespread use of biodiesel in Canada compared to those from ultralow sulfur diesel (ULSD). The health impacts/benefits resulting from biodiesel use were determined with the Air Quality Benefits Assessment Tool, based on output from the AURAMS air quality modeling system and the MOBILE6.2C on-road vehicle emissions model. Scenarios included runs for ULSD and biodiesel blends with 5 and 20% of biodiesel by volume, and compared their use in 2006 and 2020. Although modeling and data limitations exist, the results of this study suggested that the use of biodiesel fuel blends compared to ULSD was expected to result in very minimal changes in air quality and health benefits/costs across Canada, and these were likely to diminish over time.

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A computational procedure, that takes into account climatic data and produces hourly mobile emissions of pollutants on a fine grid for the Montréal Metropolitan area has been developed for the use of Environment Canada. The procedure computes HC, CO, NO x , CO 2 , SO 2 and NH 3 mobile emissions, as well as 2.5-and 10-µm particles. The mobile emissions are calculated on the highways and main arteries of the Montreal road network. The emissions from parked vehicles are computed as well. A user friendly interface, called GRILLE, has been developed for entering parameters and launching the calculations. GRILLE calls up command files for the MOBILE 6.2C software and EMME/2 macros, which include the calculation procedure. This procedure has two parts. The first, obtains emission rates, and the second part, obtains the vehicle flows on the network and estimates the pollution on a fine grid. Results could be retrieved as simple text format or as graphic output. The emission computations can be done for any day and any hour of the year. Use of the model by Environment Canada is described as well.