Evaluation of the relative impact of the emission from locals precursors and atmospheric transport in the ozone production in the Rio de Janeiro - São Paulo region

• Grant number: 08/04701-5
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: September 01, 2008
• End date: August 31, 2011
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Geosciences - Geophysics
• Principal Investigator: Plínio Carlos Alvalá
• Grantee: Plínio Carlos Alvalá
• Host Institution: Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE). Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação (Brasil). São José dos Campos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The urban pollution, specially the tropospheric ozone production, is an important issue nowadays due to its potential to affect human health, ecosystems and also because of its possible impacts in the global climate. The Paraíba Valley is an extremely interesting region under this point of view, on the edge of Paraíba do Sul River, enclosed between the mountains chains Serra da Mantiqueira and Serra do Mar, it connects the two largest Brazilian metropolitan cities: São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. The biggest city of the Valley, São José dos Campos, has indeed presented several episodes of high values of ozone concentration near the surface level along the year of 2007. This proposal intends to contribute for the characterization of the distribution of tropospheric ozone its precursor's concentrations in the scale of the Valley. Beyond the local sources, also the influence of the emissions proceeding from the regions metropolitans of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro and forest fires in the Amazon region and Central Brazil will be evaluated. This proposal aims at to extend the area of covering and the time duration of an experiment that will use a measurement platform installed in the Bandeirante aircraft of INPE (approved project CNPq N. 123789). During the experiment measurements of aerosol particles, CO, CO2, O3, CH4 e VOCs will be carry on. Also a fixed station installed in Cachoeira Paulista will be part of the experiment, where measurements of the concentrations of same the trace gases of the airborne platform, and also of nitrogen oxides (NOx) total hydro-carbons (THC) and VOCs will be conducted. Complementary with the measurements described above, the project foresees the numerical modeling of atmospheric chemistry in the local and regional scales for an evaluation deeper of the influences of the local precursors and circulation in the formation of ozone in the region of the Paraíba Valley. This experiment will allow an evaluation of the potential of extrapolation of surface level measurements. Atmospheric events of transport will be chosen on the basis of the operational forecast of model CCATT-BRAMS (Coupled Chemistry-Aerosol Transport model you the Brazilian developments on RAMS), which will allow the characterization of the diverse dominant patterns of atmospheric transport in the region. (AU)