Air Pollution Modeling and Chemistry

102-0377-00L, 3 credits, autumn semester

Lecturers: S. Henne, S. Reimann Bhend, J. Tang

1. Abstract

Air pollutants cause negative effects on humans, wildlife and buildings. To control and reduce the impact of air pollutants, their transfer from sources to receptors needs to be known. This transfer includes transport within the atmospheric boundary layer, chemical transformation reactions and phase-transfer processes from air to liquid and solid materials (aerosols, water, ...).

2. Objective

The students understand the fundamental principles of atmospheric transport, dispersion and chemistry of pollutants on the local to regional scale and their transfer between air and condensed phases (aerosols, water, solids). This includes the knowledge of important atmospheric reactions, sources and sinks. The obtained understanding enables the students to apply computational tools to predict the transport and transformation of chemicals at the local to regional scale.

3. Contents

• Structure of the Atmosphere
• Thermodynamics of the atmosphere
• Atmospheric stability
• Atmospheric boundary layer and turbulence
• Dispersion in the atmospheric boundary layer
• Numerical models of atmospheric dispersion
• Gas phase reaction kinetics
• Tropospheric chemistry and ozone formation
• Chemistry box models
• Volatile organic pollutants (VOCs) and semi-volatile organic pollutants (SVOCs)
• Aerosol modelling
• Air pollution source apportionment
• Inverse modelling of emissions

4. Literature

Continued updates of:

• Slides and handouts
• Home assignments and sample solutions
• R package and code for some of the home assignments
• MATLAB codes
• Key journal articles as discussed during lecture