EMeRGe
Effect
of Megacities on the transport and
transformation of pollutants on the Regional
and Global scales
The number and size of major population centers (MPCs) is increasing
worldwide. The investigation of the impact of transport and
transformation of plumes from MPC has lately received much attention
in the scientific community but our knowledge is still quite limited
and inadequate.
EMeRGe exploits the unique capabilities of the new
High Altitude and LOng Range (HALO)
aircraft research platform to investigate the impact of MPC
emissions on air pollution at local, regional and hemispheric scales
by making dedicated airborne measurement campaigns, coupled
interpretation and modelling studies of primarily the short lived
climate pollutants, i.e. reactive gases, temporary reservoirs, and
aerosol particles.
The transport and transformation of plumes from selected European
and Asian MPC will be investigated with special focus on the rate of
formation of ozone and aerosols. Two field campaigns using an
optimized payload of measurements on board the HALO platform based
in Europe and Asia are planned.
In EMeRGe the composition of the plumes of pollution entering
and leaving Europe and leaving Asia will be measured by performing
optimized transects and vertical profiling. This strategy enables
the outflow from a variety of MPCs, having different
characteristics, to be studied in quasi-Lagrangian approach and
therefore to identify differences and commonalities in the
transport, and transformation of the outflow from European and Asian
MPCs. Key scientific questions of the analysis will be the
dispersion and transport patterns, the factors dominating the
chemical transformation of MPCs emissions, the regional, hemispheric
and global effect of European and Asian MPCs in the change of
atmospheric composition, the relevance of emission from European and
Asian MPCs for radiative forcing and climate change and the adequacy
of chemical models for the simulation of transport and
transformation processes of European and Asian MPC plumes.
An additional overarching objective of EMeRGe to the
stand-alone EMeRGe objectives is to stimulate measurements
and modelling studies, within an international EMeRGe
research partnership with the European, Asian, and American science
community. This will facilitate a much more comprehensive
integrated analysis of all set of observational data products
(i.e.aircraft, ground and satellite based data), making
EMeRGe a milestone in the study of the transport and
transformation of plumes from MPCs.
