WRF-Chem Simulation for Modeling Seasonal Variations and Distributions of Aerosol Pollutants over the Middle East

Remote Sensing

MuhammadZeeshaan Shahid¹  Imran Shahid²  Muhammad Bilal³  Farrukh Chishtie⁴ 

[1] Earth Science and Engineering (ErSE), King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal 23955, Saudi Arabia;Environmental Science Centre, Qatar University, Doha P.O. Box 2713, Qatar;Lab of Environmental Remote Sensing (LERS), School of Marine Science, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China;Spatial Informatics Group, LLC, 2529 Yolanda Ct., Pleasanton, CA 94566, USA;

关键词: particulate matter;    aerosols;    Middle East;    anthropogenic emission;    mega cities;   

DOI  :  10.3390/rs13112112

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Atmospheric aerosols and dust have become a challenge for urban air quality. The presented study quantified seasonal spatio-temporal variations of aerosols, tropospheric ozone, and dust over the Middle East (ME) for the year 2012 by using the HTAP emission inventory in the WRF-Chem model. Simulated gaseous pollutants, aerosols and dust were evaluated against satellite measurements and reanalysis datasets. Meteorological parameters, temperature, and wind vector were evaluated against MERRA2. The model showed high spatio-temporal variability in meteorological parameters during summer and low variability in winter. The correlation coefficients for all the parameters are estimated to be 0.92, 0.93, 0.98, and 0.89 for January, April, July, and October respectively, indicating that the WRF-Chem model reproduced results very well. Simulated monthly mean AOD values were maximum in July (1.0–1.5) and minimum in January (0.1–0.4) while April and October were in the range of 0.6–1.0 and 0.3–0.7 respectively. Simulated dust concentrations were high in April and July. The monthly average aerosol concentration was highest over Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates and Jeddah, Makkah. The contributions to urban air pollution were highest over Makkah city with more than 25% from anthropogenic sources.

【 授权许可】

Unknown