Accounting for plume rise of aircraft emissions and shoreline meteorology enhances AERMOD’s description of concentrations measured around Los Angeles airport

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Aviation Environmental Design Tool (AEDT), developed by the FAA, is used to analyze the environmental impact of airport activities on air quality and noise near airports. AEDT incorporates AERMOD to estimate concentrations resulting from aircraft emissions, which possess horizontal momentum as well as buoyancy. The current version (v23132) of AERMOD incorporates plume dynamics associated with such emissions as an ALPHA option. AERMET, AERMOD’s meteorological processor does not account for the meteorology of the land-water interface that is likely to be important for airports located on the shorelines of lakes or oceans. An approach to include these effects in AERMOD was previously developed. This study examines the impact of including plume rise and shoreline effects in AERMOD by evaluating model estimates of NOX and SO2 with corresponding measurements made during the Los Angeles Airport Air Quality Source Apportionment Study (AQSAS) in the winter and summer of 2012. The performance statistics resulting from this model evaluation suggest that the inclusion of plume rise of aircraft emissions and shoreline effects on meteorological inputs is likely to improve AERMOD’s ability to estimate the impact of airport emissions on surrounding air quality. Implications: Because airport emissions, particularly those from aircraft, affect local air quality, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires the use of dispersion models such as AERMOD to assess compliance of air quality regulations when potential expansions of airport activity are planned. The current regulatory version of AERMOD does not include aircraft-specific plume rise and shoreline-related meteorological processes, which affect the dispersion of airport emissions. The preliminary evidences presented in our previous work suggest that the incorporation of these effects will enhance AERMOD’s ability to estimate NOX and SO2 concentrations associated with airport emissions. These enhancements are beneficial not only for policy-making and regulatory compliance but also for promoting sustainable development near airports and protecting public health.