Abstract
Abstract. Elemental Carbon (EC) has a significant impact on human health and climate change. In order to evaluate the size segregation of EC emission in the EUCAARI inventory and investigate its influence on the simulation of EC long-range transportation in Europe, we used the fully coupled online Weather Research and Forecasting/Chemistry model (WRF-Chem) at a resolution of 2 km focusing on a region in Germany, in conjunction with a high-resolution EC emission inventory. The ground meteorology conditions, vertical structure and wind pattern were well reproduced by the model. The simulations of particle number and/or mass size distributions were evaluated with observations at the central European background site Melpitz. The fine mode particle concentration was reasonably well simulated, but the coarse mode was substantially overestimated by the model mainly due to the plume with high EC concentration in coarse mode emitted by a nearby point source. The comparisons between simulated EC and Multi-angle Absorption Photometers (MAAP) measurements at Melpitz, Leipzig-TROPOS and Bösel indicated that the coarse mode EC (ECc) emitted from the nearby point sources might be overestimated by a factor of 2–10. The fraction of ECc was overestimated in the emission inventory by about 10–30 % for Russia and 5–10 % for Eastern Europe (e.g., Poland and Belarus). This incorrect size-dependent EC emission results in a shorter atmospheric life time of EC particles and inhibits the long-range transport of EC. A case study showed that this effect caused an underestimation of 20–40 % in the EC mass concentration in Germany under eastern wind pattern.
Highlights
Elemental carbon (EC) and black carbon (BC) are characterized by their strong radiation absorbing effect (Hansen et al, 2000; Jacobson et al, 2000; Cheng et al, 2008, 2009; Bond et al, 2013) and adverse health effects (Pope et al, 2009; Bond et al, 2013)
The anthropogenic emissions were taken from the PanEuropean Carbonaceous aerosol inventory (Visschedijk and Denier van der Gon, 2008) for EC and organic carbon (OC), which was developed in the framework of the European Integrated project on Aerosol Cloud Climate and Air Quality interactions (EUCAARI, Kulmala et al, 2011) for the year 2005
The high-resolution EUCAARI inventory of EC emission was applied in the model
Summary
Elemental carbon (EC) and black carbon (BC) are characterized by their strong radiation absorbing effect (Hansen et al, 2000; Jacobson et al, 2000; Cheng et al, 2008, 2009; Bond et al, 2013) and adverse health effects (Pope et al, 2009; Bond et al, 2013). The EC particles size segregation information is very significant for climate, long-range transport and health effect. These fine mode (sub-micron) EC particles are much more important than the coarse mode, since fine particles have longer lifetime than coarse particles (Petzold and Kärcher, 2012; Croft et al, 2014). Y. Chen et al.: Evaluation of the size segregation of EC emission in Europe the atmosphere and participate in long-range transportation (e.g. Himalayan and arctic region), and contributing to the global-scale climate forcing. An emission inventory for UNECE-Europe of EC (EUCAARI 42-Pan-European Carbonaceous aerosol inventory) has been published with a 1/8◦ × 1/16◦ high resolution and separated size mode (PM1, PM1–2.5 and PM2.5–10) (Visschedijk and Denier van der Gon, 2008). A case study of the high polluted episode in April 2009 (Nordmann et al, 2014) was re-simulated for validating the influence of size segregation in EC transportation
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
