High-Resolution Mapping of Sources Contributing to Urban Air Pollution Using Adjoint Sensitivity Analysis: Benzene and Diesel Black Carbon

Abstract

The adjoint of the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model at 1 km horizontal resolution is used to map emissions that contribute to ambient concentrations of benzene and diesel black carbon (BC) in the San Francisco Bay area. Model responses of interest include population-weighted average concentrations for three highly polluted receptor areas and the entire air basin. We consider both summer (July) and winter (December) conditions. We introduce a novel approach to evaluate adjoint sensitivity calculations that complements existing methods. Adjoint sensitivities to emissions are found to be accurate to within a few percent, except at some locations associated with large sensitivities to emissions. Sensitivity of model responses to emissions is larger in winter, reflecting weaker atmospheric transport and mixing. The contribution of sources located within each receptor area to the same receptor’s air pollution burden increases from 38–74% in summer to 56–85% in winter. The contribution of local sources is higher for diesel BC (62–85%) than for benzene (38–71%), reflecting the difference in these pollutants’ atmospheric lifetimes. Morning (6–9am) and afternoon (4–7 pm) commuting-related emissions dominate region-wide benzene levels in winter (14 and 25% of the total response, respectively). In contrast, afternoon rush hour emissions do not contribute significantly in summer. Similar morning and afternoon peaks in sensitivity to emissions are observed for the BC response; these peaks are shifted toward midday because most diesel truck traffic occurs during off-peak hours