Sensitivity of ozone predictions to biogenic hydrocarbon chemistry and emissions in air quality models
- MCNC-North Carolina Supercomputing Center, Research Triangle Park, NC (United States)
Over the last decade, there is growing evidence that biogenic hydrocarbons play an important role in regional and urban ozone (O{sub 3}) formation in the United States. As a result, the regulatory guidelines issued by the USEPA require that biogenic emissions be included in photochemical modeling. Significant changes and improvement have also been made for estimating the emissions and chemical reaction rates of biogenic hydrocarbons in air quality models. In this paper the authors examine the sensitivity of ozone predictions to the changes in biogenic hydrocarbon chemistry and emissions and investigate why ozone is sensitive to these changes. They first use a Lagrangian box model, the OZIPR/EKMA model, to examine the differences of O{sub 3} predicted using two sets of chemical mechanisms, the original CB4 mechanism and the updated CB4 mechanism with new isoprene chemistry under various emission scenarios. The results show that in the selected urban case, the updated CB4 mechanism predicted lower O{sub 3} than the original CB4 mechanism because of the lower isoprene incremental reactivity in the updated CB4 mechanism. However, in the selected rural case, the updated CB4 mechanism predicted higher O{sub 3} than the original CB4, which is in contradiction to a recent OTAG study using the updated CB4 mechanism. The Eulerian grid model simulation using the MCNC`s EDSS/MAQSIP system further lends support to the box model results. The grid model simulations show that the updated CB4 mechanism predicts much lower O{sub 3} than the original CB4 mechanism over the areas where significant amount of NO{sub x} is emitted; on the contrary, over the Southeastern US region with high isoprene emission rates, the updated CB4 mechanism predicts much higher O{sub 3}.
- OSTI ID:
- 351015
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-970677--
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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