Sensitivity of air quality modelling to different emission inventories: A case study over Europe. (April 2021) - Thunis, Philippe
Abstract: In this paper we run the EMEP air quality model with 3 state-of-the-art emission inventories for Europe, that is to say with CAMS-REG-AP, EMEP emissions, and EDGAR. The main aim of the work is to evaluate if the EDGAR inventory (despite its global coverage and independent approach to emission evaluation) is accurate enough, to be used for air quality modelling in Europe. To do so, the EMEP model has been run for the entire year 2015 using the 3 aforementioned emission inventories, and the resulting concentrations have been compared with 'background' monitoring stations. Results show that the air quality model, run with the 3 emission inventories, provide similar results despite important differences in emissions. EDGAR emissions provide slightly better validation results for PM2.5, while the EMEP emissions lead to slightly better results for yearly average NO2 . The main differences among the model applications arise in the Eastern part of Europe, where the deviations between the officially estimated emissions and those independently evaluated by EDGAR are more important. Results suggest that EDGAR, despite being a methodology aimed at global coverage, with independent sources for activity level, technologies and emission factors and generic gridding practices, can be effectively used for air quality modelling in Europe. The EDGAR dataset (v5.0) used in this paper is available at: https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.921922 . Highlights: We run the EMEP air quality model with 3 different emission inventories. Specifically, we use CAMS, EMEP and EDGAR emissions, at 2015. Concentration results have been compared with 'background' monitoring stations. The EMEP model, run with the 3 emission inventories, provides similar results. Results suggest that EDGAR can be effectively used for air quality modelling in Europe.