Correction of the daily and weekly variability of anthropogenic emissions in the chemical transport model using instrumental observations at the IAP RAS in Kislovodsk

Assessment of atmospheric air quality is an important task in matters of sustainable environmental development and in assessing public health risks. Accurate modeling of pollutant concentrations requires reliable initial data and consideration of multiple factors, including anthropogenic emission sources, meteorological conditions, and land-use aspects.

This study focuses on the adjustment of anthropogenic emissions as a method to improve modeling accuracy. Emission adjustments involve adapting the chemical transport model to the variability of emissions, which may depend on the time of day, season, and specifics of human activity. The data from field observations at the territory of the High-altitude Scientific Station of the Obukhov Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences (VNS IFA RAS), Kislovodsk, were used as indicators of the real level of pollution. Data on anthropogenic emission volumes are obtained from the international EMEP inventory and have a spatial resolution of 0.1×0.1º (www.emep.int). Emission fields with higher resolution are calculated by distributing emissions within each model grid cell, considering land-use type and population density. Accounting for local features across different time scales—from daily to monthly and seasonal variations—is performed using archival data from regional monitoring.

The chemical transport model Chimere (version 2023r3) is used as the tool for calculating pollutant concentrations. The calculated domain is 50x50 nodes in 1 km increments. The accuracy of the modeling is assessed by verifying the calculated concentrations of pollutants (ozone and carbon monoxide) against real instrumental observation data. This verification helps evaluate how well the model reflects real-world conditions and identifies potential discrepancies.

The results obtained showed a significant reduction in the reproduction errors of both the daily course of concentrations and the overall average over the period, which underlines the importance of correcting the initial emission fields.