Abstract
The Gaussian plume model AEROPOL 5 is applied to estimate the yearly average NO2 concentrations in Tartu, the second largest town of Estonia with about 100,000 inhabitants, for RHINE study. We apply the porosity concept by Genikhovich E, Gracheva I, Filatova E (Modelling of urban air pollution: principles and problems. In: Borrego C, Schayes G (eds) Air pollution modelling and its application, XV. Kluwer, New York, pp 275–283, 2002) in post-processing of modelled ground-level concentrations: the area under buildings is excluded from dispersion volume in each grid cell, thus the concentration is divided to the fraction of porosity, i.e. non-built-up area. It appears that porosity correction substantially enhances the site-wise correlations between model-estimated and measured concentrations, bringing the underestimated levels in particular monitoring sites closer to reality. Moreover, correlations are even higher, when dividing the “raw” modelled concentrations by squared porosities. We suppose that reason of non-linearity is in slowing down the wind between the buildings.
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Acknowledgements
This study was funded by FAS grant 2010–0442 and Estonian Research Council grant 8523.
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Kaasik, M., Pindus, M., Tamm, T., Orru, H. (2014). The Porosity Concept Applied to Urban Canopy Improves the Results of Gaussian Dispersion Modelling of Traffic-Dominated Emissions. In: Steyn, D., Mathur, R. (eds) Air Pollution Modeling and its Application XXIII. Springer Proceedings in Complexity. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04379-1_68
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04379-1_68
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