10th International Aerosol Conference September 2 - September 7, 2018 America's Center Convention Complex St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Abstract View
Comprehensively Assessing the Drivers of Future Air Quality in California
SHUPENG ZHU, Michael MacKinnon, James V. Soukup, Donald Dabdub, University of California, Irvine
Abstract Number: 374 Working Group: Air Quality in Megacities: from Sources to Control
Abstract Future air quality, especially aerosol and ozone, will be governed by a range of factors including the physical impacts of climate change and socioeconomic factors including emission control efforts, demands in energy end-use sectors and the deployment of alternative technologies. While the impact of these factors on air quality has been studied from an individual perspective, there is a lack of information considering them from a holistic perspective, e.g., assessment of the combined impacts, comparison among factors using a consistent modeling platform, etc. Additionally, previous work has focused mostly on the national or global scale. Therefore, there is a need for comprehensive assessment of future air quality at the state level to account for the major drivers of pollutant concentrations from a holistic perspective.
In this study, air quality in 2035 is simulated using the Community Multiscale Air Quality Modeling System (CMAQ) for California at 4 km x 4 km resolution. To assess climate impacts, meteorological conditions are generated for a baseline case and for a climate change case representative of the future Community Earth System Model (CESM1) simulation under the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP8.5) scenario. The Model of Emissions of Gases and Aerosols from Nature (MEGAN) model is used to generate biogenic emissions using both baseline and climate-impacted meteorology. Emission control strategies were developed using the Sparse Matrix Operator Kernel Emissions (SMOKE) Modeling System. SMOKE is used to grow and resolve anthropogenic emissions to 2035 based on expected emission control strategies from the California Air Resources Board. In addition, results from an electrical grid dispatch model in combination with transportation system modeling are used to consider the potential impact of wide-spread adoption of renewable electricity in tandem with electric vehicle deployment. Furthermore, the impact of climate correlated building energy consumption and the resulting emission changes are considered. For the first time, this work quantifies the impact of major factors on future air quality (e.g., aerosol and ozone) in California. For example, climate change alone could lead to an averaged increase of over 20 ppb in summer ozone, with the most prominent impacts in north central California. The number of days in which concentrations exceed health-based ozone standards also increase with the inclusion of climate impacts. The impact of climate is also significant for the concentration of PM2.5, with an average increase over 14 μg/m3 along the northern coast line of California, along with an average increase around 5 μg/m3 over the San Francisco Bay Area and the Central Valley of California during the summer period. On the contrary, the effect of climate change results in an overall decrease of PM2.5 during the winter period, with a maximum of 20 μg/m3 within the Central Valley of California. Further comparisons will be made between the baseline and the alternative technologies case to understand the relative scale of impact between emission reductions from technologies advancement relative to impacts from climate including impacts on meteorology, biogenic emission, and end-use energy consumption. Finally, a comprehensive scenario will be simulated to include all contributing factors to understand the interactions and potential offsets among different factors.