American Association for Aerosol Research - Abstract Submission

AAAR 35th Annual Conference
October 17 - October 21, 2016
Oregon Convention Center
Portland, Oregon, USA

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ZeFir: A New Igor Tool for Wind and Trajectory Analyses

JEAN-EUDES PETIT, Olivier Favez, Alexandre Albinet, Francesco Canonaco, Air Lorraine

     Abstract Number: 56
     Working Group: Source Apportionment

Abstract
Ambient air pollution is nowadays of great concern, notably due to demonstrated health effects and impacts on climate. In order to settle adapted mitigation policies, great advances in statistical analysis have allowed a source apportionment that is more and more comprehensive. However, if answering “what are the sources?” is crucial, answering “where do they come from?” is just as much important. In this context, various methodologies have been developed in the last decades to investigate the geographical origins of atmospheric pollution, based either on wind data or on backtrajectory analyses. To date, only few software exist to easily perform one or the other approach, but do not offer user-friendly solutions to perform both.

We present here ZeFir, a new Igor-based package to achieve a comprehensive geographical origin analysis using a single tool. Non-parametric Wind Regression, Potential Source Contribution Function, Concentration-Weighted Trajectory and Concentration Field are easily run from user-friendly panels.

Innovative features are implemented and allow a deeper but eased understanding of the above methodologies. Indeed, for instance, trajectory analyses in ZeFir are doped with:

- dataset enlargement, to take more trajectories into account (especially useful for daily measurements)
- trajectory cut-off options using precipitation or altitude
- interactive parameterization of the weighing function
- multi-site merging.

Finally, ZeFir takes advantage of SourceFinder, an Igor-based tool for source apportionment, where freshly apportioned sources can have their geographical origins quickly examined.