Coupled Air Quality and Boundary-Layer Meteorology in Western U.S. Basins during Winter: Design and Rationale for a Comprehensive Study

Abstract

Wintertime episodes of high aerosol concentrations occur frequently in urban and agricultural basins and valleys worldwide. These episodes often arise following development of persistent cold-air pools (PCAPs) that limit mixing and modify chemistry. While field campaigns targeting either basin meteorology or wintertime pollution chemistry have been conducted, coupling between interconnected chemical and meteorological processes remains an insufficiently studied research area. Gaps in understanding the coupled chemical-meteorological interactions that drive high pollution events make identification of the most effective air-basin specific emission control strategies challenging. To address this, a September 2019 workshop occurred with the goal of planning a future research campaign to investigate air quality in Western U.S. basins. Approximately 120 people participated, representing 50 institutions and 5 countries. Workshop participants outlined the rationale and design for a comprehensive wintertime study that would couple atmospheric chemistry and boundary-layer and complex-terrain meteorology within western U.S. basins. Participants concluded the study should focus on two regions with contrasting aerosol chemistry: three populated valleys within Utah (Salt Lake, Utah, and Cache Valleys) and the San Joaquin Valley in California. This paper describes the scientific rationale for a campaign that will acquire chemical and meteorological datasets using airborne platforms with extensive range, coupled to surface-based measurements focusing on sampling within the near-surface boundary layer, and transport and mixing processes within this layer, with high vertical resolution at a number of representative sites. No prior wintertime basin-focused campaign has provided the breadth of observations necessary to characterize the meteorological-chemical linkages outlined here, nor to validate complex processes within coupled atmosphere-chemistry models.

Characterizing Charge Structure in Central Argentina Thunderstorms During RELAMPAGO Utilizing a New Charge Layer Polarity Identification Method

“…During the five‐month period the RELAMPAGO LMA network was operating in Cordoba, Argentina. Different storm modes were observed and included isolated convection, multicellular storms, supercells, and mesoscale convective systems (Nesbitt et al., 2021 ). In order to demonstrate the capability of the algorithm to infer their charge structures, examples of distinct Cordoba cases and their evolution in time are presented.…”

“…As part of the RELAMPAGO field campaign (Nesbitt et al., 2021 ), an LMA of 11 sensors was deployed by NASA Marshall Space Flight Center to the eastern side of the Sierra de Cordoba mountains in the province of Cordoba, Central Argentina, from mid‐November 2018 to mid‐April 2019 (Lang et al., 2020 ). RELAMPAGO LMA data was used in this study for development and validation of the charge layer inference method, and characterization of the charge structure climatology in the Cordoba warm season.…”

“…This study aims to characterize the charge structure in the Central Argentina region for the first time, utilizing a large data set, as it is a key science goal of the RELAMPAGO (Remote sensing of Electrification, Lightning, And Mesoscale/microscale Processes with Adaptive Ground Observations) field campaign (Nesbitt et al., 2021 ). This novel research is achieved by first developing and testing a new automated method to retrieve thunderstorm charge layer polarity using LMA source and flash data, which is described in this paper.…”

Evaluating the mitigation strategies of COVID-19 by the application of the CO2 emission data through high-resolution agent-based computational experiments

“…Mitigation strategies restrict social production and living activities, thereby hindering the social-economic development. The reduction of commercial and industrial activities would undoubtedly lead to a reduction in the emission of pollutants such as , PM 2.5 ( Ali et al, 2020 ; Bolaño-Ortiz et al, 2020 ; WHO, 2020b ; Zeng et al, 2020 ; Zhang, 2021 ). Wang et al, (2020) discovered that there is a linear relationship between the daily rate of new COVID-19 cases and the total reduction of emission in various provinces of China.…”

Lightning Geolocation and Flash Rates From LF Radio Observations During the RELAMPAGO Field Campaign

“…Most studies of these Argentinian storms have relied on satellite‐based radar, lightning, radiometer observations that could be used to research various storm climatologies. Data from the multitude of ground‐based sensors deployed during the Remote sensing of Electrification, Lightning, and Mesoscale/Microscale Processes with Adaptive Ground Observation (RELAMPAGO) field campaign in 2018 (Nesbitt et al., 2021 ) a unique opportunity for thunderstorm research using ground‐based lightning locating systems (LLSs) combined with ground‐based radar and other meteorological data to investigate these storms and their evolution in more detail.…”