Klimaatverandering en transport en infrastructuur. Actualisatie van de risico's en kansen voor klimaatadaptatiebeleid

Source contributions to PM2.5 and PM10 at an urban background and a street location

The contribution of regional, urban and traffic sources to PM2.5 and PM10 in an urban area was investigated in this study. The chemical composition of PM2.5 and PM10 was measured over a year at a street location and up- and down-wind of the city of Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The 14C content in EC and OC concentrations was also determined, to...

Warming-induced increase in aerosol number concentration likely to moderate climate change

Atmospheric aerosol particles influence the climate system directly by scattering and absorbing solar radiation, and indirectly by acting as cloud condensation nuclei. Apart from black carbon aerosol, aerosols cause a negative radiative forcing at the top of the atmosphere and substantially mitigate the warming caused by greenhouse gases. In the...

Regional air quality modeling: North American and European perspectives

An overview of regional-scale quality modeling practices and perspectives in North America and Europe, highlighting the differences and commonalities in how regional-scale air quality modeling systems are being used and evaluated across both continents

Bias Correction Techniques to Improve Air Quality Ensemble Predictions: Focus on O3 and PM Over Portugal

Five air quality models were applied over Portugal for July 2006 and used as ensemble members. Each model was used, with its original set up in terms of meteorology, parameterizations, boundary conditions and chemical mechanisms, but with the same emission data. The validation of the individual models and the ensemble of ozone (O3) and...

Differences in particulate matter concentrations between urban and rural regions under current and changing climate conditions

Pollution levels in urban areas and their surrounding rural regions differ due to different sources and density of emissions, different composition of pollutants as well as specific meteorological effects. These concentration differences for PM10 are investigated and compared in this study for three different north-west European urban...

Source apportionment of the ambient PM2.5 across St. Louis using constrained positive matrix factorization

In most cases, receptor models are applied to data from a single monitoring site even if there are multiple sampling locations in a given urban area. When it can be reasonably expected that the sites are affected by the same set of sources, it is possible to use the spatial variability of the source contributions to enhance the source...

The surface heat island of Rotterdam and its relationship with urban surface characteristics

Thermal infrared high resolution satellite images from Landsat sensors were used to spatially quantify the surface heat island (SHI) of Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Based on surface temperature maps retrieved on 15 summer days since 1984, the average surface temperature of each district and neighbourhood within the city was compared to the...

Towards an online-coupled chemistry-climate model: Evaluation of trace gases and aerosols in COSMO-ART

Abstract. The online-coupled, regional chemistry transport model COSMO-ART is evaluated for periods in all seasons against several measurement datasets to assess its ability to represent gaseous pollutants and ambient aerosol characteristics over the European domain. Measurements used in the comparison include long-term station observations,...

Climate change in the Netherlands: Challenges for a safe and attractive urban environment

Climate change in cities has so far been underexposed in Dutch research on climate change adaptation. High population density and high economic values make Dutch urban areas nevertheless vulnerable to climate change. Even with stringent mitigation policies Dutch cities will be subject to warmer summers, more peaks in rainfall and wetter winters....

Klimaatverandering in Nederland. Uitdagingen voor een leefbare stad

In het Nederlands stedelijk gebied zijn de risico’s op schade en overlast door de gevolgen van klimaatverandering relatief hoog vanwege de hoge bevolkingsdichtheid en hoge economische waarde (wonen, industrie). Bovendien is een aanzienlijk deel van het stedelijk gebied in Nederland laag en dus kwetsbaar gelegen. Dit vraagt om een gerichte en...