Abstract
Air pollution continues to be of concern for Bulgarian cities, mainly due to particulate matter of aerodynamic diameter smaller than 10 μm (PM10). There is public and expert interest in the improvement of two operational air quality modeling systems: the Bulgarian Chemical Weather Forecast System (BgCWFS) and the Local Air Quality Management System (LAQMS) for the city of Plovdiv. The aim of the study is to investigate the effects of satellite data assimilation in BgCWFS on surface concentrations over Bulgaria (resolution 9 km), to downscale BgCWFS output to LAQMS (resolution 250 m), and to examine effects on PM10 in Plovdiv. Data from the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment-2 (GOME-2) (MetOP satellites) for aerosols, nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and sulfur dioxide (SO2) were assimilated in BgCWFS using objective analysis. Simulation experiments with and without satellite data were conducted for a summer and a winter month. The comparison to surface observations in the country showed improvement of results when using satellite data, especially in the summer due to mineral dust events captured by satellites. The decrease in the normalized mean bias (NMB) over the two months was 43% (PM10) and 73% (SO2). The LAQMS estimated background contributions to PM10 in the city as 32%. The absolute NMB by LAQMS decreased by 38%.
Highlights
This study focused on a combination of satellite-retrieved parameters and two air quality modeling systems—a regional one, based on a chemical transport model, and an urban one, with dispersion models for air quality management at city scale
The main objective of this study was to investigate the effects of satellite data assimilation in Bulgarian Chemical Weather Forecast System (BgCWFS) on the model’s performance for surface concentrations over Bulgaria during one summer and one winter month
We discuss results obtained by two versions of BgCWFS: BgCWFS_mod and BgCWFS_sat focusing on the ground-level concentrations for selected pollutants
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Air quality is a key element for the environment, economy, and public health. In. Europe, air pollution is today recognized as the most important environmental health risk, with particulate matter (PM), ozone (O3 ), and nitrogen dioxide (NO2 ) concentrations exceeding air quality (AQ) standards in many urban areas [1]. In densely populated urban areas, the multiple emission sources in and around the city cause population exposure to polluted air. In most Bulgarian cities, the primary emission sources are traffic and household heating.
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