Distribution of black carbon in Northern Europe and the Arctic, and relations with climate forcing and air quality

• Main Author: Gaire, Surakshya
• Other Authors: Helsingin yliopisto, Matemaattis-luonnontieteellinen tiedekunta, Fysiikan laitos, University of Helsinki, Faculty of Science, Department of Physics, Helsingfors universitet, Matematisk-naturvetenskapliga fakulteten, Institutionen för fysik
• Format: Master Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Helsingfors universitet 2016
• Subjects: black carbon
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10138/176235

The objective of this master s thesis was to better understand the impact of black carbon and its distribution in Northern Europe and the Arctic. To achieve the goal of the project, information on the observations relevant to black carbon (BC) pollution in Arctic dataset was collected. For the observational data all main BC measurement campaigns along with active satellite operations were collected. In this study, the BC concentration and deposition was estimated by the System Integrated Modelling of Atmospheric coMposition - a chemical transport model (CTM) SILAM. The model was driven with monitoring atmospheric composition and climate (MACCity), emission database for global atmospheric research hemispheric transport of air pollution (EDGAR-HTAP), and evaluating the climate and air quality impacts of short lived pollutants (ECLIPSE) emission inventories. For the computations, the year 2010 was chosen because of a better availability of data during that year. In the literature section, black carbon process in the atmosphere is explained along with its properties and characteristics. Furthermore, data description and data analysis is included which is followed by interpretation of model output on the seasonal deposition and concentration. As shown by the model-measurement comparison, the model basically captured the measured BC and organic carbon (OC) quite well for all emission inventories. However, the correlation coefficient for OC was still weak for most of the stations in Europe. The overall performance of BC for European stations is substantially better than in the Arctic areas. Deposition for BC and OC shows that the seasonal transport of BC from source regions is evident in the Arctic and near Arctic areas. Patterns of dry deposition is higher in winter period than in summer period. The SILAM model suggests winter period concentration of BC by MACCity and ECLIPSE inventory of 0.23 µg/m3 and 0.26 µg/m3 respectively for year 2010. This study provides a best performing setup for BC modeling , transport and ...