AAAR 34th Annual Conference
October 12 - October 16, 2015
Hyatt Regency
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Abstract View
Modeling Study of the 2010 Regional Haze Event in the North China Plain
MENG GAO, Gregory Carmichael, Yuesi Wang, Pablo Saide, Man Yu, Jinyuan Xin, Zirui Liu, Zifa Wang, University of Iowa
Abstract Number: 597 Working Group: Urban Aerosols
Abstract The North China Plain (NCP) region is experiencing heavy haze pollution with record-breaking high concentrations of particulate matters. Because haze influences visibility, human health and climate, numerous studies have used multiple methods to investigate physical, chemical and seasonal characteristics of aerosols during haze. The online coupled Weather Research and Forecasting-Chemistry (WRF-Chem) model was applied to simulate a haze event happened in January 2010 in the NCP, and validated against various types of measurements. The evaluations indicate that WRF-Chem provides reliable simulations for the 2010 haze event in the NCP. This haze event is mainly caused by high emissions of air pollutants in the NCP and stable weather conditions in winter. Secondary inorganic aerosols also played an important role and cloud chemistry had important contributions. The underestimation of sulfate and organic aerosols might be due to missing reactions in current model. Air pollutants outside Beijing contributed about 47.8% to the PM2.5 levels in Beijing during this haze event, and most of them are from south Hebei, Shandong and Henan provinces. In addition, aerosol feedback has important impacts on surface temperature, RH and wind speeds, and these meteorological variables affect aerosol distribution and formation in turn. In Shijiazhuang, PM2.5 increased more than 20μg/m3 and Planetary Boundary Layer (PBL) decreased about 300m due to aerosol feedback. Black Carbon (BC) accounts for about 50% of the PM2.5 increases and 50% of the PBL decreases in Shijiazhuang, indicating more attention should be paid to BC from both air pollution control and climate change perspectives.