Chemical composition and transformation of VOCs in the outflow of large population centers in Europe and Asia during EMeRGe (Chocolate)
Final Report Abstract
Before the EMeRGe mission, major technical improvements regarding calibration and instrument characterization were achieved resulting in an extended range of reliably measurable Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) including formaldehyde and methanol. Various VOCs were used as tracers to characterize probed air masses according to their source regions. As promised in the proposal this analysis led to a better understanding of the VOC composition of MPC emissions and it allowed assessing the impact of mixing between MCP emissions with air masses from other sources (e.g. biogenic emissions from forested areas). It was shown that in Europe only ~29 % of the probed air masses show clear anthropogenic signals while in Asia a percentage of ~47 % was influenced by anthropogenic sources mainly originating from Chinese Mega- and Gigacities. In Europe, anthropogenic emissions were mostly emitted into clean Atlantic air (and thereafter mixed) leading to an overall lower percentage of probed anthropogenic signals. This is also reflected by the high percentage of BB- and AP-free air masses in contrast to Asia where pollution plays a more important role. In Asia also a larger fraction of probed air masses was influenced by fresh biomass burning (BB) from either local sources that mixed with anthropogenic emissions or from long range transport of aged BB air masses. In Europe, only minor BB influence was observed mostly from local sources in Southern Europe and to less extent from western long range transport. Due to flight restrictions, the lack of spatial coverage and the (unexpected) impact of mixing the application of VOC emission ratios and chemical clocks as promised in the proposal cannot be applied. Therefore, a detailed study of chemical transformation of different MPC outflows is not feasible for the majority of the probed air and model simulations have been used as additional tools for source identification. Finally, we conclude that Chocolate was a full success. Indeed, the VOC based characterization of air masses is intensively used by other EMeRGe partners to analyse fingerprints of their measured species in different air masses types. The high visibility has been achieved by various conference contributions and the data use in the upcoming papers.
Publications
- (2018): First results of VOC and ozone measurements in European and Asian Major Population Centers (MPC) during the research aircraft campaign EMeRGe (2017/2018), IGAC, Takamatsu, Japan
Förster, E.; Neumaier, M.; Bönisch, H; Obersteiner, F. and Zahn, A.
- (2019): Identification of biomass burning (BB) downstream of European and Asian Major Population Centers (MPC) during the research aircraft campaign EMeRGe (2017/2018), IUGG, Montreal, Canada
Förster, E.; Neumaier, M.; Bönisch, H.; Obersteiner, F; Lichtenstern, M; Hilboll, A; Kalisz Hedegaard, A. B.; Vrekoussis, M and Zahn, A.
- (2020): Air mass characterization based on VOC measurements downstream of European and Asian Major Population Centers (MPC) during the research aircraft campaign EMeRGe (2017/2018), digital EGU
Förster, E.; Neumaier, M.; Bönisch, H.; Obersteiner, F; Lichtenstern, M; Hilboll, A; Kalisz Hedegaard, A. B.; Vrekoussis, M and Zahn, A.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-16820) - (2021): On the transport and transformation of pollutants in the outflow of major population centres: Observational data from the EMeRGe European intensive operational period in summer 2017. ACP/AMT special issue
M.D. Andrés Hernández, Andreas Hilboll, Helmut Ziereis, Eric Förster, Ovid O. Krüger, Katharina Kaiser, Johannes Schneider, Francesca Barnaba, Mihalis Vrekoussis, Jörg Schmidt, Heidi Huntrieser, Anne-Marlene Blechschmidt, Midhun George, Vladyslav Nenakhov, Theresa Klausner, Bruna A. Holanda, Jennifer Wolf, Lisa Eirenschmalz, Marc Krebsbach, Mira L. Pöhlker, Anna Hedegaard, Linlu Mei, Klaus Pfeilsticker, Yangzhuoran Liu, Ralf Koppmann, Hans Schlager, Birger Bohn, Ulrich Schumann, Andreas Richter, Benjamin Schreiner, Greta Stratmann, Daniel Sauer, Robert Baumann, Mariano Mertens, Patrick Jöckel, Markus Kilian, Christopher Pöhlker, Monica Campanelli, Marco Pandolfi, Michael Sicard, J.L. Gómez-Amo, Manuel Pujadas, Katja Bigge, Flora Kluge, Anja Schwarz, Nikos Daskalakis, David Walter, Andreas Zahn, Ulrich Pöschl, Harald Bönisch, Stephan Borrmann, Ulrich Platt, John Phillip Burrows, and the EMeRGe community
(See online at https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-5877-2022)
