Changes in Nitrogen Dioxide and Ozone over Southeast and East Asia between Year 2000 and 2030 with Fixed Meteorology

Abstract

In the framework of the European Network of Excellence ACCENT changes in near-surface and total tropospheric nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and ozone from year 2000 to 2030 have been calculated for the Southeast and East Asian regions using the chemical transport model Oslo CTM-2. Anthropogenic emissions of ozone precursors for the year 2000 case are taken from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). Regarding year 2030 emissions, three different scenarios are compared: 1) IIASA ¡¥current legislation¡¦ (CLE), where current air quality legislation around the world is implemented; 2) IIASA ¡¥maximum feasible reduction¡¦ (MFR), in which all currently available technologies are applied to achieve maximum emission reductions; and 3) the IPCC-SRES A2 scenario, which was used as a high emission estimate in the last IPCC assessment report. While increases in NO2 and ozone are calculated when using the CLE scenario, reductions are seen for the MFR scenario. In the SRES A2 case, increases in NO2 are largest, locally leading to ozone reductions at the surface resulting from titration effects. The model calculations suggest that air quality problems will be severely aggravated over Southeast and East Asia if current legislation is not attained.

Keywords

• NO2 columns
• Surface ozone
• 3-D chemical transport modeling
• Future air quality
• Southeast Asia
• East Asia
• Emission scenarios