EURODELTA-Trends, a multi-model experiment of air quality hindcast in Europe over 1990–2010

Augustin Colette (1) , Camilla Andersson (2) , Astrid Manders (3) , Kathleen Mar (4) , Mihaela Mircea (5) , Maria-Teresa Pay (6) , Valentin Raffort (7) , Svetlana Tsyro (8) , Cornelius Cuvelier (9) , Mario Adani (5) , Bertrand Bessagnet (1) , Robert Bergström (2) , Gino Briganti (5) , Tim Butler (4) , Andrea Cappelletti (5) , Florian Couvidat (1) , Massimo d'Isidoro (5) , El Hadji Thierno Doumbia (10) , Hilde Fagerli (8) , Claire Granier (11, 10, 12) , Chris Heyes (13) , Zig Klimont (13) , Narendra Ojha (14) , Noelia Otero (4) , Martijn Schaap (15) , Katerina Sindelarova (10) , Annemiek I. Stegehuis (16) , Yelva Roustan (7) , Robert Vautard (16, 17) , Erik van Meijgaard (18) , Marta Garcia Vivanco (19) , Peter Wind (8, 20)

1 INERIS - Institut National de l'Environnement Industriel et des Risques
2 SMHI - Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute
3 TNO - The Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research
4 IASS - Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies [Potsdam]
5 ENEA - Agenzia Nazionale per le nuove Tecnologie, l’energia e lo sviluppo economico sostenibile = Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development
6 Earth Sciences Department [Barcelona]
7 CEREA - Centre d'Enseignement et de Recherche en Environnement Atmosphérique
8 MET - Norwegian Meteorological Institute [Oslo]
9 JRC - European Commission - Joint Research Centre [Ispra]
10 TROPO - LATMOS
11 ESRL - NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory
12 CIRES - Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences
13 IIASA - International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis [Laxenburg]
14 MPIC - Max-Planck-Institut für Chemie
15 TNO Climate, Air and Sustainability [Utrecht]
16 LSCE - Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement [Gif-sur-Yvette]
17 ESTIMR - Extrèmes : Statistiques, Impacts et Régionalisation
18 KNMI - Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute
19 CIEMAT - Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas
20 UiT - University of Tromsø

The EURODELTA-Trends multi-model chemistry-transport experiment has been designed to facilitate a better understanding of the evolution of air pollution and its drivers for the period 1990–2010 in Europe. The main objective of the experiment is to assess the efficiency of air pollutant emissions mitigation measures in improving regional-scale air quality. The present paper formulates the main scientific questions and policy issues being addressed by the EURODELTA-Trends modelling experiment with an emphasis on how the design and technical features of the modelling experiment answer these questions. The experiment is designed in three tiers, with increasing degrees of computational demand in order to facilitate the participation of as many modelling teams as possible. The basic experiment consists of simulations for the years 1990, 2000, and 2010. Sensitivity analysis for the same three years using various combinations of (i) anthropogenic emissions, (ii) chemical boundary conditions, and (iii) meteorology complements it. The most demanding tier consists of two complete time series from 1990 to 2010, simulated using either time-varying emissions for corresponding years or constant emissions. Eight chemistry-transport models have contributed with calculation results to at least one experiment tier, and five models have – to date – completed the full set of simulations (and 21-year trend calculations have been performed by four models). The modelling results are publicly available for further use by the scientific community. The main expected outcomes are (i) an evaluation of the models' performances for the three reference years, (ii) an evaluation of the skill of the models in capturing observed air pollution trends for the 1990–2010 time period, (iii) attribution analyses of the respective role of driving factors (e.g. emissions, boundary conditions, meteorology), (iv) a dataset based on a multi-model approach, to provide more robust model results for use in impact studies related to human health, ecosystem, and radiative forcing.

Domaines: Sciences de l'environnement

Augustin Colette, Camilla Andersson, Astrid Manders, Kathleen Mar, Mihaela Mircea, et al.. EURODELTA-Trends, a multi-model experiment of air quality hindcast in Europe over 1990–2010. Geoscientific Model Development, 2017, 10 (9), pp.3255 - 3276. ⟨10.5194/gmd-10-3255-2017⟩. ⟨insu-01663171⟩