Urban and regional modeling of air quality in a changing climate in Brazil

• Grant number: 17/01082-1
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Visiting Researcher Grant - International
• Start date: November 01, 2017
• End date: December 22, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Geosciences - Meteorology
• Principal Investigator: Maria de Fátima Andrade
• Grantee: Maria de Fátima Andrade
• Visiting researcher: Yang Zhang
• Visiting researcher institution: North Carolina State University (NC State), United States
• Host Institution: Instituto de Astronomia, Geofísica e Ciências Atmosféricas (IAG). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 15/50128-9 - Astrid - accessibility, social justice and transport emission impacts of transit-oriented development strategies, AP.TEM

Abstract

In this project, I propose to conduct urban and regional scale modeling of air quality and its interactions with climate in Brazil and MASP areas using an advanced online-coupled climate and air quality model. Our main goal is to understand the unique and important role of air pollution, in particular, atmospheric aerosols, from Brazil in regional and global air quality and climate. Our specific objectives are to (1) Conduct short-term episode simulations of air quality and climate in Brazil and MASP for a field campaign period to evaluate the model's capability in reproducing atmospheric observations; (2) Conduct long-term simulations of air quality and climate in Brazil to study the responses of future air quality to changes in emissions and climate. Our proposed work will address several scientific and policy questions: (1) What are the short- and long-term interactions between air quality and climate on regional and urban scales in Brazil? How are they different from those in the U.S.? (2) What are the responses of future air quality to changes in projected emissions and climate in Brazil? How are they different from those in the U.S.? (3) Can a regional air quality and climate model developed in the U.S. reproduce well the atmospheric observations in Brazil? (AU)