Inverse modeling of surface NOx anthropogenic emission fluxes in the Paris area during the Air Pollution Over Paris Region (ESQUIF) campaign

Abstract

An inverse modeling approach has been developed to optimize urban NOx emission fluxes. We used the chemistry‐transport model CHIMERE and its adjoint to develop a new methodology that includes kriging of measurements and a dynamic spatial aggregation model taking into account surface morphology of emission fluxes and ozone plumes to determine areas where emissions are inverted. This method is first applied to a seasonal approach over the Paris area. All emission fluxes were inverted hourly for the months of July and August of years 1998 and 1999. This leads to a significant reduction of the differences between simulated and measured concentrations of ozone and NOx. The results suggest that in the first‐guess inventory, NOx fluxes are overestimated in the city of Paris and underestimated in the suburban areas. For the two periods the differences between optimized and first‐guess profiles are about 15%. Comparisons between time profiles showed that Mondays and Wednesdays in August had characteristics that made them differ from the other days of the week. Two intensive observation periods of the Air Pollution Over Paris Region (ESQUIF) campaign are focused on and hourly results are discussed in order to refine the climatological results.