Influence of long-range transported aerosols on air quality from in situ and remote sensing data

This research project will study the effect of long-range aerosol transport to the local aerosol budget. Human health is affected by atmospheric aerosols both of local and remote origin; differentiating between these two aerosol types can help design appropriate air quality policies. The goal of this study is to provide a methodology form performing such an assessment based on multi sensor input and modeling.

While several aerosol remote sensing instruments are available, taken individually they don't provide a complete characterization of the atmospheric aerosol content. A fist aim of this study is to assess the appropriate instruments synergies to construct a consistent, multi-year time-series of advanced aerosol products. Using this dataset, appropriate cases will be selected to be further studied using aerosol transport models. From these case studies the possibility to routinely estimate the effect of long-range transport to local air quality will be assessed. The developed products will be examined considering their possible use for routine aerosol model evaluation and data assimilation.

The main accomplishment expected of this study is an automatic procedure to retrieve aerosol volume concentration profiles from lidar measurements. A quantitative assessment of the effect of long-range aerosol to the aerosol content of Bucharest will be performed.