Presenting efforts to model air quality and dust over Cyprus

On the 1st June 2022, Dr. George Georgiou, Post-doctoral research fellow, from CARE-C of The Cyprus Institute delivered a presentation with title ‘Air quality and dust modelling over Cyprus’ at the offices of CNP Holdings in Nicosia. The lecture was organized by the Cyprus Health and Safety Association (CySHA) within the framework of the AQ-SERVE Project which is funded by the Research Innovation Foundation (RIF), and for which CARE-C is the Coordinator.

The lecture informed audiences about the efforts of CARE-C and the AQ-SERVE Consortium to model air quality over Cyprus. In this regard, the presentation focused on quality models that can simulate the concentrations of atmospheric pollutants and provide information on their origin but can also act as early-warning systems and warn in advance for air pollution episodes. CARE-C uses the state-of-the-art WRF- Chem model for the simulation of the atmospheric concentrations of pollutants that are considered harmful to human health such as ozone, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter (including dust), but also for daily, 3-day air quality forecast over Cyprus, which will soon be publicly available.

Furthermore, within the context of the research, CARE-C researchers have incorporated a high-resolution emission inventory using emission data provided by the Department of Labor Inspection which resulted in important improvement of the model skill to simulate the concentrations of atmospheric pollutants over Cyprus. As a result, the Center can perform air quality forecasts over Cyprus with higher accuracy compared to the forecast provided by the European Union (CAMS model).

Information about the research results presented during the event are published in the following manuscripts:

Georgiou, G. K., Kushta, J., Christoudias, T., Proestos, Y., and Lelieveld, J.: Air quality modelling over the Eastern Mediterranean: Seasonal sensitivity to anthropogenic emissions, Atmos. Environ., 222, 117119, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2019.117119, 2020.

Georgiou, G. K., Christoudias, T., Proestos, Y., Kushta, J., Pikridas, M., Sciare, J., Savvides, C., and Lelieveld, J.: Evaluation of WRF-Chem model (v3.9.1.1) real-time air quality forecasts over the Eastern Mediterranean, Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 4129–4146, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-4129-2022, 2022.

AQ-SERVE (Project INTEGRATED/0916/0016) is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund and the Republic of Cyprus through the Research and Innovation Foundation.