Wenyi Yang

Modeling study of source contributions and emergency control effects during a severe haze episode over the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area

In February 2014, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) area experienced a weeklong episode of heavy haze pollution. Cities such as Beijing (BJ) and Shijiazhuang (SJZ) issued heavy pollution alerts for the first time and took emergency control measures. This study employed the Nested Air Quality Prediction Modeling System (NAQPMS) to simulate and analyze the three-dimensional structure of the source contributions of PM2.5 in the BTH area during this pollution episode and quantitatively assessed the effects of the emergency control measures. The results showed that during the polluted period (February 19–26), surface PM2.5 mainly originated from local sources (48%–72%). In the entire BTH area, southern Hebei (SHB) represented the largest internal contribution (33%), while the main external contributions came from Shandong (SD) (10%) and Henan (HN) (4%). Vertically, the local contribution was constrained below the near-ground layer, and rapidly decreased with altitude. The regional transport path from SHB and Shanxi (SX) to BJ appeared at 0.5–1.5 and 1.5–2.5 km, with contributions of 32%–42% and 13%–27%, respectively. The non-local source regions for the BTH area were SD below 1 km and mainly SX and HN above 1 km. Compared to the non-polluted period (February 27–28), the contribution from regional transport increased during the polluted period, indicating the key role of regional transport in the pollution formation. The emergency control measures had a relatively large effect on NOx and SO2 concentrations, but a limited effect on PM2.5. The stronger regional transport during the polluted period may have weakened the effects of the local emergency control measures. These results indicated that a coordinated emission control should be implemented not only over the BTH area but also over its surrounding provinces (e.g. SD, HN).

A nonnegativity preserved efficient chemical solver applied to the air pollution forecast

Air pollution forecast is becoming more and more important nowadays. The numerically sticky chemical ordinary differential equations (ODEs) is a critical component of air pollution models. Various solvers have been designed for the chemical ODEs in the past. However, they are either slow or imprecise. In our previous work, we have designed a nonnegativity preserved efficient chemical solver MBE, which is an acronym for Modified-Backward-Euler. In this paper, we review MBE method and prove its convergence and stability mathematically, which guarantee that MBE results converge to the exact solutions as the step-size becomes smaller and MBE results with relatively small step-size can be used as the standard. Then we apply MBE to the Nested Air Quality Prediction Modeling System (NAQPMS). Comparison between MBE and the most popular solver LSODE is also made. Considering the speed and precision, MBE is a better choice for the air pollution forecast.

Simulation on different response characteristics of aerosol particle number concentration and mass concentration to emission changes over mainland China

In this study, Nested Air Quality Prediction Modeling System with Advance Particle Microphysics module (NAQPMS+APM) is applied to simulate the response characteristics of aerosol particle number concentration and mass concentration to emission changes over mainland China. It is the first attempt to investigate the response of both aerosol mass concentration and number concentration to emission changes using a chemical transport model with detailed aerosol microphysics over mainland China. Results indicate that the response characteristics are obviously different between aerosol particle number concentration and mass concentration. Generally, the response of number concentration shows a more heterogeneous spatial distribution than that of mass concentration. Furthermore, number concentration has a higher sensitivity not only to primary particles emission but also to precursor gases than that of mass concentration. Aerosol particle mass concentration exhibits a consistent trend with the emission change and yet aerosol number concentration does not. Due to the nonlinearity of aerosol microphysical processes, reduction of primary particles emission does not necessarily lead to an obvious decrease of aerosol number concentration and it even increases the aerosol number concentration. Over Central-Eastern China (CEC), the most polluted regions in China, reducing primary particles emission rather than precursor gas emissions is more effective in reducing particles number concentration. By contrast, the opposite is true over the northwestern China. The features of fine particles pollution revealed in this study are associated with the spatial differences in Chinas population, geography, climate and economy. Considering the more adverse effects of ultrafine particles on human health and the spatial distribution of population, making different measures in controlling particles number concentration from that controlling mass concentration in different regions over mainland China is indicated. MAIN FINDINGS FPN concentration responds more heterogeneously to emission than FPM. Spatial difference of response of FPN to emission is distinguished by a boundary line.