Application of a Lagrangian particle model to assess the impact of harbour, industrial and urban activities on air quality in the Taranto area, Italy

Gariazzo, Claudio; Papaleo, Vincenzo; Pelliccioni, Armando; Calori, Giuseppe; Radice, Paola; Tinarelli, G.

doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2007.06.005

Cited by 76 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…The largest and more industrialised area is in proximity of the city of Taranto, 60 km North-East of ENEA, with significant urban (Â200 000 inhabitants) and large industrial emissions. In summer, due to the prevalence of a landÁsea circulation, the plumes from Taranto only occasionally influence the study area (Gariazzo et al, 2007). The average surface aerosol concentration is generally low, as expected for a rural site.…”

Section: The More Campaignmentioning

confidence: 97%

On the complexity of the boundary layer structure and aerosol vertical distribution in the coastal Mediterranean regions: a case study

Pace¹,

Junkermann

Vitali³

et al. 2015

Tellus B: Chemical and Physical Meteorology

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A B S T R A C TThe planetary boundary layer structure in the coastal areas, and particularly in complex orography regions such as the Mediterranean, is extremely intricate. In this study, we show the evolution of the planetary boundary layer based on in situ airborne measurements and ground-based remote sensing observations carried out during the MORE (Marine Ozone and Radiation Experiment) campaign in June 2010. The campaign was held in a rural coastal Mediterranean region in Southern Italy. The study focuses on the observations made on 17 June. Vertical profiles of meteorological parameters and aerosol size distribution were measured during two flights: in the morning and in the afternoon. Airborne observations were combined with ground-based LIDAR, SODAR, microwave and visible radiometer measurements, allowing a detailed description of the atmospheric vertical structure. The analysis was complemented with data from a regional atmospheric model run with horizontal resolutions of 12, 4 and 1 km, respectively; back-trajectories were calculated at these spatial resolutions. The observations show the simultaneous occurrence of dust transport, descent of mid-tropospheric air and sea breeze circulation on 17 June. Local pollution effects on the aerosol distribution, and a possible event of new particles formation were also observed. A large variability in the thermodynamical structure and aerosol distribution in the flight region, extending by approximately 30 km along the coast, was found. Within this complex, environment-relevant differences in the back-trajectories calculated at different spatial resolutions are found, suggesting that the description of several dynamical processes, and in particular the sea breeze circulation, requires high-resolution meteorological analyses. The study also shows that the integration of different observational techniques is needed to describe these complex conditions; in particular, the availability of flights and their timing with respect to the occurring phenomena are crucial.

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Section: The More Campaignmentioning

confidence: 97%

On the complexity of the boundary layer structure and aerosol vertical distribution in the coastal Mediterranean regions: a case study

Pace¹,

Junkermann

Vitali³

et al. 2015

Tellus B: Chemical and Physical Meteorology

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“…This can lead to a transport of pollutants from high emission areas onwards to inhabited areas (Gariazzo et al, 2007) or a closed recirculation and hence accumulation of pollutants (Crosman and Horel, 2016;Lo et al, 2006;Rimetz-Planchon et al, 2008). Most of these works have in common that the background circulation reduces the relevance of the local effects (Crosman and Horel, 2010).…”

Section: Observational Perspective On Air Pollution In Coastal Citiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sensitivity of local air quality to the interplay between small- and large-scale circulations: a large-eddy simulation study

Wolf¹,

Esau²,

Reuder

2017

Atmos. Chem. Phys.

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Abstract. Street-level urban air pollution is a challenging concern for modern urban societies. Pollution dispersion models assume that the concentrations decrease monotonically with raising wind speed. This convenient assumption breaks down when applied to flows with local recirculations such as those found in topographically complex coastal areas. This study looks at a practically important and sufficiently common case of air pollution in a coastal valley city. Here, the observed concentrations are determined by the interaction between large-scale topographically forced and local-scale breeze-like recirculations.Analysis of a long observational dataset in Bergen, Norway, revealed that the most extreme cases of recurring wintertime air pollution episodes were accompanied by increased large-scale wind speeds above the valley. Contrary to the theoretical assumption and intuitive expectations, the maximum NO 2 concentrations were not found for the lowest 10 m ERA-Interim wind speeds but in situations with wind speeds of 3 m s −1 . To explain this phenomenon, we investigated empirical relationships between the large-scale forcing and the local wind and air quality parameters. We conducted 16 large-eddy simulation (LES) experiments with the Parallelised Large-Eddy Simulation Model (PALM) for atmospheric and oceanic flows. The LES accounted for the realistic relief and coastal configuration as well as for the large-scale forcing and local surface condition heterogeneity in Bergen. They revealed that emerging local breeze-like circulations strongly enhance the urban ventilation and dispersion of the air pollutants in situations with weak largescale winds. Slightly stronger large-scale winds, however, can counteract these local recirculations, leading to enhanced surface air stagnation.Furthermore, this study looks at the concrete impact of the relative configuration of warmer water bodies in the city and the major transport corridor. We found that a relatively small local water body acted as a barrier for the horizontal transport of air pollutants from the largest street in the valley and along the valley bottom, transporting them vertically instead and hence diluting them. We found that the stable stratification accumulates the street-level pollution from the transport corridor in shallow air pockets near the surface. The polluted air pockets are transported by the local recirculations to other less polluted areas with only slow dilution. This combination of relatively long distance and complex transport paths together with weak dispersion is not sufficiently resolved in classical air pollution models. The findings have important implications for the air quality predictions over urban areas. Any prediction not resolving these, or similar local dynamic features, might not be able to correctly simulate the dispersion of pollutants in cities.

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“…The contribution of ships and harbour emissions to local air quality, with specific focus on atmospheric aerosol, has been investigated using models (Trozzi et al, 1995;Gariazzo et al, 2007;Eyring et al, 2005;Marmer et al, 2009), experimental analyses at high temporal resolution (Ault et al, 2010;Contini et al, 2011;Jonsson et al, 2011;Diesch et al, 2013;Donateo et al, 2014), receptor models based on the identification of chemical tracers associated with ship emissions (Viana et al, 2009;Pandolfi et al, 2011;Cesari et al, 2014) and integrated approaches with receptor and chemical transport models . Few studies exist in open sea (Becagli et al, 2012;Schembari et al, 2014;Bove et al, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Constraining the ship contribution to the aerosol of the central Mediterranean

et al. 2017

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Abstract. Particulate matter with aerodynamic diameters lower than 10 µm, (PM 10 ) aerosol samples were collected during summer 2013 within the framework of the Chemistry and Aerosol Mediterranean Experiment (ChArMEx) at two sites located north (Capo Granitola) and south (Lampedusa Island), respectively, of the main Mediterranean shipping route in the Straight of Sicily.The PM 10 samples were collected with 12 h time resolutions at both sites. Selected metals, main anions, cations and elemental and organic carbon were determined.The evolution of soluble V and Ni concentrations (typical markers of heavy fuel oil combustion) was related to meteorology and ship traffic intensity in the Straight of Sicily, using a high-resolution regional model for calculation of back trajectories. Elevated concentration of V and Ni at Capo Granitola and Lampedusa are found to correspond with air masses from the Straight of Sicily and coincidences between trajectories and positions of large ships; the vertical structure of the planetary boundary layer also appears to play a role, with high V values associated with strong inversions and a stable boundary layer. The V concentration was generally lower at Lampedusa than at Capo Granitola V, where it reached a peak value of 40 ng m −3 .Concentrations of rare earth elements (REEs), La and Ce in particular, were used to identify possible contributions from refineries, whose emissions are also characterized by elevated V and Ni amounts; refinery emissions are expected to display high La / Ce and La / V ratios due to the use of La in the fluid catalytic converter systems. In general, low La / Ce and La / V ratios were observed in the PM samples. The combination of the analyses based on chemical markers, air mass trajectories and ship routes allows us to unambiguously identify the large role of the ship source in the Straight of Sicily.Based on the sampled aerosols, ratios of the main aerosol species arising from ship emission with respect to V were estimated with the aim of deriving a lower limit for the total ship contribution to PM 10 . The estimated minimum ship emission contributions to PM 10 were 2.0 µg m −3 at Lampedusa and 3.0 µg m −3 at Capo Granitola, corresponding with 11 and 8.6 % of PM 10 , respectively.

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Application of a Lagrangian particle model to assess the impact of harbour, industrial and urban activities on air quality in the Taranto area, Italy

Cited by 76 publications

References 4 publications

On the complexity of the boundary layer structure and aerosol vertical distribution in the coastal Mediterranean regions: a case study

On the complexity of the boundary layer structure and aerosol vertical distribution in the coastal Mediterranean regions: a case study

Sensitivity of local air quality to the interplay between small- and large-scale circulations: a large-eddy simulation study

Constraining the ship contribution to the aerosol of the central Mediterranean

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