A mobile laboratory for monitoring non-exhaust emissions in Finland

Local vehicular traffic is responsible for a substantial fraction of PM10 in urban air mainly due to non-exhaust traffic emissions and resuspension from street surfaces (e.g. Zhao et al., 2006). In Northern areas (e.g. Scandinavia) street dust levels are especially high during spring, and the diurnal average PM10 value (the EU directive) is exceeded more than the allowed 35 times per year. In this paper we introduce the sampling system of a mobile research laboratory SNIFFER for studying emission levels of respirable dust from street surfaces. We have measured a unique time series of the street level PM10 concentrations in a city of Helsinki, Finland, during the last five springs. A special 20 km route in downtown was selected to cover main streets including bus lanes, tram lanes, canyon streets, open transit streets and some cobblestone covered streets. For every spring the maximun emission level averaged over the whole route was 2000-4500 mg/m-3 and occurred in the turn from March to April, after which the clear decreasing trend was found. The most highest street concentrations were measured on the street canoyns as well as on the streets covered by copplestone and on the sections which were under work construction

Present day challenges in understanding the geomagnetic hazard to national power grids

Power grids and pipeline networks at all latitudes are known to be at risk from the natural hazard of geomagnetically induced currents. At a recent workshop in South Africa, UK and South African scientists and engineers discussed the current understanding of this hazard, as it affects major power systems in Europe and Africa. They also summarised, to better inform the public and industry, what can be said with some certainty about the hazard and what research is yet required to develop useful tools for geomagnetic hazard mitigation

Evaluation of a coupled dispersion and aerosol process model against measurements near a major road

International audienceA field measurement campaign was conducted near a major road "Itäväylä" in an urban area in Helsinki in 17?20 February 2003. Aerosol measurements were conducted using a mobile laboratory "Sniffer" at various distances from the road, and at an urban background location. Measurements included particle size distribution in the size range of 7 nm?10 ?m (aerodynamic diameter) by the Electrical Low Pressure Impactor (ELPI) and in the size range of 3?50 nm (mobility diameter) by Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer (SMPS), total number concentration of particles larger than 3 nm detected by an ultrafine condensation particle counter (UCPC), temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, driving route of the mobile laboratory, and traffic density on the studied road. In this study, we have compared measured concentration data with the predictions of the road network dispersion model CAR-FMI used in combination with an aerosol process model MONO32. The vehicular exhaust emissions, and atmospheric dispersion and transformation of fine and ultrafine particles was evaluated within the distance scale of 200 m (corresponding to a time scale of a couple of minutes). We computed the temporal evolution of the number concentrations, size distributions and chemical compositions of various particle size classes. The atmospheric dilution rate of particles is obtained from the roadside dispersion model CAR-FMI. Considering the evolution of total number concentration, dilution was shown to be the most important process. The influence of coagulation and condensation on the number concentrations of particle size modes was found to be negligible at this distance scale. Condensation was found to affect the evolution of particle diameter in the two smallest particle modes. The assumed value of the concentration of condensable organic vapour of 1012 molecules cm?3 was shown to be in a disagreement with the measured particle size evolution, while the modelling runs with the concentration of condensable organic vapour of 109?1010 molecules cm?3 resulted in particle sizes that were closest to the measured values

Exhaust emissions of non-road mobile machine : Real-world and laboratory studies with diesel and HVO fuels

Exhaust emissions emitted by a non-road mobile machine were studied chasing a tractor in real-world conditions and repeating the same transient tests with a similar engine on an engine dynamometer where additionally, non-road steady state tests were carried out. The engines were equipped with an oxidation catalyst (DOC) and a selective catalytic reduction (SCR)system, and they were fuelled by fossil diesel fuel with ultra-low sulphur content and hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO). By substituting diesel fuel with HVO the on-road emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) reduced 20% and particle number 44%, the emission factors being EFNOx =1.62 +/- 0.04 g/kWh and EFN = (28.2 +/- 7.8) x 10(13) #/kWh. Similar trend was observed for NOx at laboratory although the emissions were somewhat smaller than on-road. In contrast to real-world, in the laboratory experiment the EFN was only 2% smaller with HVO than with diesel, and these emission factors were almost one order of magnitude smaller than observed on-road. The number size distribution and volatility measurements showed that in real-world experiments small nucleation mode particles were formed during uphill and during downhill in engine braking conditions. These were not observed at laboratory. However, nucleation mode particles were observed in the laboratory experiments at high load steady driving conditions. At steady state tests the emissions strongly depended on engine load and engine speed with both fuels. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Peer reviewe

Evaluation and modelling of the size fractionated aerosol particle number concentration measurements nearby a major road in Helsinki ? Part I: Modelling results within the LIPIKA project

International audienceA field measurement campaign was conducted near a major road "Itäväylä" in an urban area in Helsinki in 17?20 February 2003. Aerosol measurements were conducted using a mobile laboratory "Sniffer" at various distances from the road, and at an urban background location. Measurements included particle size distribution in the size range of 7 nm?10 ?m (aerodynamic diameter) by the Electrical Low Pressure Impactor (ELPI) and in the size range of 3?50 nm (mobility diameter) by Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer (SMPS), total number concentration of particles larger than 3 nm detected by an ultrafine condensation particle counter (UCPC), temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, driving route of the mobile laboratory, and traffic density on the studied road. In this study, we have compared measured concentration data with the predictions of the road network dispersion model CAR-FMI used in combination with an aerosol process model MONO32. For model comparison purposes, one of the cases was additionally computed using the aerosol process model UHMA, combined with the CAR-FMI model. The vehicular exhaust emissions, and atmospheric dispersion and transformation of fine and ultrafine particles was evaluated within the distance scale of 200 m (corresponding to a time scale of a couple of minutes). We computed the temporal evolution of the number concentrations, size distributions and chemical compositions of various particle size classes. The atmospheric dilution rate of particles is obtained from the roadside dispersion model CAR-FMI. Considering the evolution of total number concentration, dilution was shown to be the most important process. The influence of coagulation and condensation on the number concentrations of particle size modes was found to be negligible on this distance scale. Condensation was found to affect the evolution of particle diameter in the two smallest particle modes. The assumed value of the concentration of condensable organic vapour of 1012 molecules cm?3 was shown to be in a disagreement with the measured particle size evolution, while the modelling runs with the concentration of condensable organic vapour of 109?1010 molecules cm?3 resulted in particle sizes that were closest to the measured values

Seasonal and Diurnal Variation of Geomagnetic Activity: Revised \u3cem\u3eDst\u3c/em\u3e Versus External Drivers

Daily and seasonal variability of long time series of magnetometer data from Dst stations is examined. Each station separately shows a local minimum of horizontal magnetic component near 18 local time (LT) and weakest activity near 06 LT. The stations were found to have different baselines such that the average levels of activity differed by about 10 nT. This effect was corrected for by introducing a new “base method” for the elimination of the secular variation. This changed the seasonal variability of the Dst index by about 3 nT. The hemispheric differences between the annual variation (larger activity during local winter and autumn solstice) were demonstrated and eliminated from the Dst index by addition of two Southern Hemisphere stations to a new index termed Dst6. Three external drivers of geomagnetic activity were considered: the heliographic latitude, the equinoctial effect, and the Russell–McPherron effect. Using the newly created Dst6 index, it is demonstrated that these three effects account for only about 50% of the daily and seasonal variability of the index. It is not clear what drives the other 50% of the daily and seasonal variability, but it is suggested that the station distribution may play a role

Model studies of volatile diesel exhaust particle formation : are organic vapours involved in nucleation and growth?

A high concentration of volatile nucleation mode particles (NUP) formed in the atmosphere when the exhaust cools and dilutes has hazardous health effects and it impairs the visibility in urban areas. Nucleation mechanisms in diesel exhaust are only poorly understood. We performed model studies using two sectional aerosol dynamics process models AEROFOR and MAFOR on the formation of particles in the exhaust of a diesel engine, equipped with an oxidative after-treatment system and running with low fuel sulfur content (FSC) fuel, under laboratory sampling conditions where the dilution system mimics real-world conditions. Different nucleation mechanisms were tested. Based on the measured gaseous sulfuric acid (GSA) and non-volatile core and soot particle number concentrations of the raw exhaust, the model simulations showed that the best agreement between model predictions and measurements in terms of particle number size distribution was obtained by barrier-free heteromolecular homogeneous nucleation between the GSA and a semi-volatile organic vapour combined with the homogeneous nucleation of GSA alone. Major growth of the particles was predicted to occur due to the similar organic vapour at concentrations of (1-2) x 10(12) cm(-3). The pre-existing core and soot mode concentrations had an opposite trend on the NUP formation, and the maximum NUP formation was predicted if a diesel particle filter (DPF) was used. On the other hand, the model predicted that the NUP formation ceased if the GSA concentration in the raw exhaust was less than 10(10) cm(-3), which was the case when biofuel was used.Peer reviewe

Mobile measurements of ship emissions in two harbour areas in Finland

Four measurement campaigns were performed in two different environments – inside the harbour areas in the city centre of Helsinki, and along the narrow shipping channel near the city of Turku, Finland – using a mobile laboratory van during winter and summer conditions in 2010–2011. The characteristics of gaseous (CO, CO2, SO2, NO, NO2, NOx) and particulate (number and volume size distributions as well as PM2.5) emissions for 11 ships regularly operating on the Baltic Sea were studied to determine the emission parameters. The highest particle concentrations were 1.5 × 106 and 1.6 × 105 cm−3 in Helsinki and Turku, respectively, and the particle number size distributions had two modes. The dominating mode peaked at 20–30 nm, and the accumulation mode at 80–100 nm. The majority of the particle mass was volatile, since after heating the sample to 265 °C, the particle volume of the studied ship decreased by around 70%. The emission factors for NOx varied in the range of 25–100 g (kg fuel)−1, for SO2 in the range of 2.5–17.0 g (kg fuel)−1, for particle number in the range of (0.32–2.26) × 1016 # (kg fuel)−1, and for PM2.5 between 1.0–4.9 g (kg fuel)−1. The ships equipped with SCR (selective catalytic reduction) had the lowest NOx emissions, whereas the ships with DWI (direct water injection) and HAMs (humid air motors) had the lowest SO2 emissions but the highest particulate emissions. For all ships, the averaged fuel sulphur contents (FSCs) were less than 1% (by mass) but none of them was below 0.1% which will be the new EU directive starting 1 January 2015 in the SOx emission control areas; this indicates that ships operating on the Baltic Sea will face large challenges