NPS/CIRA POLICY RELEVANT SCIENCE IN SUPPORT OF NPS- ARD AIR QUALITY ISSUES AND ACTIVITIES

NPS-CIRA  Cooperative agreements  Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA) – PI: Jenny Hand  Atmospheric Chemistry – PI: Jeff Collett, Sonia Kreidenweis Collaborate with CIRA and Atmospheric science & chemistry professors / graduate students / research associates  Collaboration with other CSU departments Soil and crop sciences Statistic Physiology Physics

NPS-CIRA Purpose  ARD Purpose: “The ARD, in partnership with parks and others, works to preserve, protect, enhance, and understand air quality and other resources sensitive to air quality in the National Park System”  NPS-CIRA Purpose: Provide policy relevant science and technical assistance to guide and support NPS air quality management and help form meaningful regulatory actions and decisions  Define policy relevant air quality questions and develop strategies and information to address them  Rigorous, credible and defensible science/assessments Trusted experts  Address NPS air quality issues that have national implications  Form, foster and leverage collaborations with federal, state, and public organization / institutions

Some Current and Past Collaborations/ Interactions with other ARD Personal  Nitrogen deposition issues  ROMANS was an ARD initiative that involved extensive interactions among most personnel  Co-chair and develop conference sessions and participate in workshops  Worked with Ellen Porter in developing the GrandTrends scope of work  Provided modeled N deposition, O3, and visibility patterns and trends in Four Corners and Death Valley  Worked with John Ray to develop continuous N instruments  Reviewed proposals  Kristi Gebhart helped to develop Air Score Card  Developed climate change effects on air quality in the parks SOW  Policy, Planning Permit Review  Assisted in Lenticular book marks for haze; Sequoia Kings Canyon air quality visitor center kiosk; website support  Helped to review permits: e.g. Desert Rock Facility; oil and gas EIS  Supported development of ROMO N Deposition MOU; present material to RMNP Initiative Agriculture Subcommittee

Collaborations outside of ARD  NRPC Divisions  Support the night sky program Funded the development of a night sky radiative transfer model Purchased and will deploy night sky radiance monitors  Participate in climate change education program  Developing web based data aggregation, visualization and dissemination tools which will be integrated into I & M NPS Natural Resource Information Portal.  Working with other organizations including EPA, FS, F&W and university groups e.g. CSU, UCD, DRI on IMPROVE; FED; special studies; and more

Air Quality Management  Define air quality goals  National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS)  Develop new standards: Critical loads, Air toxics  Monitoring (Status and Trends)  Determine the actual conditions and loads  Determine deviation from goals  Assess success of mitigation strategies  Assessment and Planning  Identify current sources and contributions to pollutants  Assess impacts of future emission forcing functions (climate change)  Regulatory Actions  Implement control strategies Assessments

NPS-CIRA’s Role in Air Quality Management  What’s coming into the ecosystem?  N Deposition and haze results from multiple compounds  Where is it coming from?  Short-Term: Develop meaningful regulatory actions  Long-Term Track changes in source contributions to ensure regulatory actions have desired effects Identify potential compensating changes in unregulated sources, e.g. natural sources

Nitrogen Deposition Reduction Plan Glidepath Rocky Mountain National Park

Compensating Trends in N Deposition Compounds

Changing Source Contributions

Regional Haze  NPS-CIRA started in early 1980’s  Primary activity: Haze in NP  Basic research into physical/chemical/optical properties of haze  Instrument development  Human perception studies  Determine status and trends of aerosol and haze  Haze source apportionment  20 years of research/ assessment fed into the development of the 1999 Regional Haze Rule

Air Quality Issues and Activities Beyond Visibility  Nitrogen Deposition  Excess N dep. in a number of ecosystems  Secondary SOx/NOx NAAQS to address N dep.  Possible reactive N standard Monitor, model ecosystem effects development  Ozone  Rural NP will likely violate proposed O 3 NAAQS  Wildfire/Biomass burning  Contribution of biomass burning to haze, ambient N, ozone, air toxics  Climate Change  Affects of climate change on emissions, (e.g. biogenic VOC, fire) and air quality in our NP

One Atmosphere  All air quality issues are inter-related linked by common emissions, atmospheric dispersion and/or chemical processing.  Historically we have focused on each air quality issue separately. We now have a level of knowledge and understanding that we can look at more integrated air quality issues.

Monitoring: Status, Trends and Discovery  IMPROVE aerosol and optical monitoring  Support special haze and N deposition studies  Studies for monitoring development and evaluation – e.g. reactive nitrogen  NHx monitoring network  Coarse mass monitoring network  Radiocarbon monitoring network  Special Studies  RoMANS  Grand Trends  BRAVO  ……………

IMPROVE Monitoring Program The Interagency Monitoring of Protected Visual Environments  A cooperative measurement effort of particulate matter and haze in class I areas  Governed by representatives from Federal e.g. EPA and Land Managers and regional-state organizations  Objectives:  Establish current visibility and aerosol conditions in federal class I areas (FCIA)  Identify chemical species and emission sources responsible for existing man-made visibility impairment in FCIA  Document long-term trends for assessing progress towards the national visibility goal to FCIA  With the enactment of the Regional Haze Rule, to provided regional haze monitoring representing all visibility-protected FCIARegional Haze Rule  Conduct visibility/aerosol assessments: Intensive monitoring studies

Speciated PM2.5 and PM10 mass monitoring network Began operating in spring of 1988 with 20 monitoring sites Today has ~160 sites - most with ten or more years of data.

The Regional Haze Rule: Progress is tracked using the 20% worst haze days Husar Return visibility in national parks and wilderness areas to “natural visibility” conditions by 2064

Leveraging the IMPROVE network: NHx Monitoring using modified IMPROVE samplers Using IMPROVE infrastructure: Site operators, RTI performing IC analysis CSU (Collett et al.,) and Derek are coordinating monitoring, QA/QC, data reduction, filter prep NH 3 + NH 4 Collocated Samplers

Radiocarbon ( 14 C) Distinguishing Between Contemporary and Fossil Carbon Winter Summer Fraction Contemporary C % - rural sites 70-80% - near urban sites 50% - urban sites 60-75% in industrial Midwest Similar fraction contemporary carbon in winter and summer

Special Study Field Measurements  Detailed measurements not suitable to routine field programs  Develop more complete concentration/deposition budgets  ~45% of N deposition at ROMO is not routinely measured

Source Apportionment: Where did the air pollution come from? Source regionsSource Types  Develop meaningful regulatory actions  Track changes in source contributions to ensure regulatory actions have desired effects

Apportionment Strategy  If chemical transport models were “perfect” then all apportionment problems would best be addressed through the exercise of these models.  BUT THEY ARE NOT! –especially when addressing species other than ozone and sulfate.

Apportionment Strategy (Weight of Evidence)  Multiple approaches building from simple to complex. Reconciliation of differences  Concentration gradients.  Which way is the wind coming from?  Simple back trajectories.  Frequency with which the air mass passes over source areas before it arrives at the receptor -residence time analysis.  Trajectory receptor models.  Receptor models.  Chemical transport models.  Hybrid Models. Qualitative Quantitative

Jeameen Baek et al., - Georgia Institute of Technology Hybrid Source Apportionment Model Meteorology Air Quality Source-compositions (F) Source-oriented Model (3D Air-quality Model) (CMAQ, CAMx) Receptor (monitor) Receptor Model (CMB, PMF) Source Impacts Chemistry Receptor model C=f(F,S)

CIRA/ NPS Outreach and Education Introduction to Visibility Textbook- A textbook loaded with color pictures and graphics, accompanied by a CD- ROM with animated illustrations,designed to communicate basic principles of light and particle interactions and describe their impact on visual resources. Touch Screen Kiosks - Calendar Web site Brochures Video tape training and briefs Site Operator Training CD_ROM –Designed as a training aid for IMPROVE site operators and intended to be used at monitoring sites in the field. Interactive Touch Screen Kiosk displays for visitors centers– Interactive technology is used to in visitor centers to make park visitors aware that human activities impact environmental systems in national parks. Great Smoky Mountains NP and Sequoia Kings Canyon NP are two successful park programs

Data and Information Distribution Visualization and Analysis Websites

Impact of Climate Change on AQRVs  A Changing climate will impact  Natural and anthropogenic emissions of pollutants and precursors  Atmospheric chemical and physical processes forming/removing pollutants from the atmosphere  Land use/coverage changes  Air quality goals?  These affects will have negative and positive effects on AQRVs  Haze, PM, Ozone, N deposition, hazardous, pollutants…

Climate Change Impact on Emissions Affecting AQRVs  Climate change forcing of emissions  Wildfires – VOC, PM, N compounds, black carbon…  VOCs from vegetation  Nitrogen compounds (NOx, NH3,..) from soils and vegetation  Dust  Oceanic emissions ?  Human response and emissions changes due to climate change

How will the changing climate affect Air Quality in National Parks?  What impact will climate change have on natural haze levels? How do we account for this in the RHR?  How will it affect the nitrogen critical loads? How do you define critical load in a changing ecosystem? due to climate forcing?  Ozone and exceptional events?  Ammonia emissions from soils increase with increasing temperature and decreasing soil moisture  How much of the increasing wet NH4 deposition throughout the Rocky Mountains is due to changing climate?

Modeling Impact of climate change on AQRVs  Using future climate and emission scenarios, perform global and regional modeling exercises to develop a comprehensive assessment of climate change on park air quality.  Understand potential impact of climate change on park AQRVs  The nations response to reducing GHG emissions could have significant positive or negative (no response) impact on air quality.  Place current air quality goals, data and source attributions in a broader (future) context  Use results to educate people on A.Q. impacts of climate change  Spracklen et al., Impact of climate change from 2000 – 2050 on wildfire activity and carbonaceous aerosols in the western U.S.  Zhang et al., 2008 – Impacts of regional climate change on biogenic emissions and air quality  Heald et al., 2008 – Change in global SOA in response to future climate, emissions and land use change

NPS-CIRA History  Started in 198? (brief respite in 198?)  Primary activity: Haze in National Parks  Basic research into physical/chemical/optical properties of aerosol and haze  Instrument development  Human perception studies to quantify human response to haze  Determine status and trends of aerosol and haze  Haze source apportionment  20 years of research/assessment fed into the development of the 1999 Regional Haze Rule

ARD Air Quality Management  Issues  Regional Haze  Nitrogen Deposition  Ozone  Particulate matter  Air Toxics  Emission Forcing Functions  Moving from point to distributed ill-defined sources  Growing populations  Moving from fossil to alternative energy sources  Forest/Smoke management  Climate Change  Global Industrialization (transboundary transport)

Meeting goal is to provide broad overview of the activities and unique capabilities of the NPS Fort Collins group and CSU (CIRA, Atm Chem)  A) our mission B) AQ management wheel then go to issues……  Air quality issues (history of visibility and now moving on to other issues including N dep, smoke, o3  Monitoring (IMPROVE, imp NH3 ;N-dep) what do we do with monitoring data – status and trends; source assessments  Source apportionment – multi-approaches; building from simple to complex  Illustrate the process  Gradients pointing to sources  Winds  Trajectories (single – ensemble)  CTM –show box  Hybrid – show schematic  Education and outreach  Research initiatives  Reactive nitrogen monitoring network  Reactive N source apportionment  Assess contribution of biomass burning to haze, ozone and N deposition  Assess impact of a changing climate on NPS air quality and AQRV  Infrastructure development On-line decision support system for data visualization, analysis and distribution Turn-key chemical transport modeling system for rapid assessments Routine assessment of biomass burning and other sources to of carbon particulates to haze  Whats coming into the ecosystem and where it is coming from