Simulations of future sulphur and nitrogen deposition over Europe using meteorological data from three regional climate projections

Abstract

We use a regional model of atmospheric chemistry and transport to investigate trends in sulphur and nitrogen deposition over Europe during the first half of the 21st century. To assess changes due to climate change, the model was operated with meteorology from a regional climate model simulating present and future climates. The sensitivity of the deposition calculations to uncertainties in the climate projections was explored by using output from three different climate models. Changes in anthropogenic air pollution emissions in Europe were extracted from the gridded RCP4.5 emission inventory. The modelling systems were evaluated by comparing average modelled precipitation, deposition and concentrations over a 20-year period with observations collected around the year 2000. We conclude that the deposition of sulphur and nitrogen containing species will mainly be governed by changes in European emissions of these species over the period 2000–2050. If future emissions follow the pathway of the RCP4.5 scenario, Europe can expect significantly lower deposition of sulphur and oxidised nitrogen in 2050 compared to 2000. For reduced nitrogen, large areas of western Europe will receive considerably more deposition in 2050 than in 2000, due to feedback of decreased sulphur concentrations on the atmospheric turnover time of reduced nitrogen. Domain averaged reductions of total deposition from 2000 to 2050 are 63, 41 and 0.9% for sulphur, oxidised- and reduced nitrogen, respectively. Climate change results in decreased wet deposition of sulphur and reduced nitrogen leading to increased atmospheric turnover time of these species. Climate and emission changes lead to decreased atmospheric turnover times of reduced nitrogen but increased atmospheric turnover times of sulphur and oxidised nitrogen. These relations are likely leading to altered source-receptor relations in the future.