Evaluation of the air quality for ozone in the Metropolitan Region of Campinas

• Grant number: 06/60217-0
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - First Projects Program (PPP)
• Start date: May 01, 2007
• End date: September 30, 2008
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Geosciences - Meteorology
• Agreement: CNPq - First Projects Program
• Principal Investigator: Cláudia Boian
• Grantee: Cláudia Boian
• Host Institution: Instituto de Astronomia, Geofísica e Ciências Atmosféricas (IAG). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

It is proposed to study the meteorological chemical factors and emissions, that determine the air quality in the Metropolitan Region of Campinas (MRC), especially the formation of ozone, with the possibility of forecasting indices of air quality for this pollutant. The motivation for carrying out this work comes from the preliminary results obtained from the Cetesb, in the monitoring of ozone carried out during the first 11 months of 2003, in Americana (40 km away from Campinas), which classified the air of this city for the period as being the second most polluted by ozone in the interior of the State of São Paulo. The bad quality of the air was attributed to episodes of transport of ozone from the source regions Campinas and Paulínia, by mechanisms of local circulation. For this study we will use the CIT photochemical model (air quality model of the Caltech Institute of Technology). The model will be calibrated beforehand with the data on surface ozone collected from the air quality stations of Cetesb for critical periods in terms of concentration for the years 2003 and 2004. Later, based on prediction of air quality, we will define the period of carrying out a campaign for the launch of ECC (Electrochemical Concentration Cell) ozonesondes, aimed at validating the results of the modeling with experimental data of vertical profiles of ozone. This campaign will be undertaken in partnership with the Inpe Ozone Laboratory. An experiment of ozone soundings will be carried out in the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo (RMSP) within the ambit of the public policies project Photochemical air quality models, implementation for simulation and evaluation of concentrations of tropospheric ozone in urban regions (Process 03/06414-0, FAPESP). It is intended that the experiments will be carried out in the same period, permitting, in this way, the description of the transport between these metropolitan regions. At a later stage, it is aimed to carry out simulations, using the RAMS (Regional Atmospheric Modeling System) meteorological model, which has a simplified chemical mechanism being set up for the management of the entry parameters: meteorological parameters, air circulation and ozone concentration, for the purposes of comparison with the results obtained when using data from Cetesb in the CIT photochemical model of air quality. (AU)