Abstract
An evaluation has been made of a range of simple and complex atmospheric transport models, applied to estimate sulphur and nitrogen deposition in the UK in order to provide information to policy makers to support decisions on future model use. The models were evaluated by comparison with annually averaged measurements from the national monitoring networks. A number of statistical metrics were output to assess model performance and the models were compared graphically by plotting cross-country transects of concentrations in air.
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Acknowledgement
This work was supported by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
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Questions and Answers
Questioner Name: Jeff Weil
Q: Don’t you need uncertainty estimates in addition to mean concentration to assess whether or not finer grid resolution is giving meaningful results? Can you resolve the difference in mean correlation between two neighbouring grids outside the uncertainty limits?
A: For the example presented (exceedance of the critical level for ammonia over nature reserves) we are confident that the higher resolution (1Â km) simulation is an improvement over the coarser (5Â km) grid. The reason for this is that the source (agricultural) areas are better spatially resolved from the sink (nature reserve) areas. i.e. cattle are not permitted to graze in Special Areas of Conservation in a more effective manner using 1Â km resolution NH3 emissions.
In a generic sense, uncertainty in chemical transport models may be higher with increased grid resolution depending on success in resolving the driving process (emissions, chemistry, meteorology or land use).
Questioner Name: Jordi Vila
Q: Can you comment on the difference between the resolution of measurements (very much influenced by local micro-meteorological effects) and the model resolution (∼5 km)?
A: The models (with ∼5 km grid resolution) are not able to capture in detail local meteorological effects on air concentrations and these may be significant. Only rural sites were used in the inter-comparison (located >2.5 km from a major road for NO2 measurements). The models generally gave good correlation with NO2 measurements but correlation was less good for NH3 (where emissions are mixed into the rural landscape).
Questioner Name: Peter Builtjes
Q: What would be your guess of the uncertainty of total N deposition over the UK?
A: Taking into account uncertainties in emissions (magnitude and mapping), modelled nitrogen concentrations (in air and precipitation), deposition velocities and annual precipitation, uncertainty in total modelled nitrogen deposition at a grid point could be ∼ +/−50 %.
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Dore, A.J. et al. (2014). Evaluation and Inter-comparison of Acid Deposition Models for the UK. In: Steyn, D., Builtjes, P., Timmermans, R. (eds) Air Pollution Modeling and its Application XXII. NATO Science for Peace and Security Series C: Environmental Security. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5577-2_85
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5577-2_85
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