Air Pollution

Air pollution is a multifaceted problem involving many different pollutants, scales, processes and sources. We apply state-of-the-art numerical models to study air quality at regional to urban scales to provide guidance for policy makers and input for environmental assessments. Our main tools are the chemistry-transport model ICON-ART for regional to continental scales and GRAMM/GRAL for urban and building-resolving scales. 

Our air quality modeling activities focus on the accurate representation of short-lived, reactive trace gases and aerosols. We investigate feedbacks within the coupled atmospheric system of gases, liquids, and solid particles, and seek to understand and quantify the effects of future changes in emissions on air pollution levels and the associated climate and health impacts.

​​​​​​Applications

  • Studying the effects of reducing primary air pollutants on the formation of secondary air pollutants and the removal of air pollutants from the atmosphere.
  • Determining efficient strategies to reduce air pollution levels using emissions scenarios.
  • Understanding the reasons and mechanisms of past events with high air pollution levels (local sources vs. long-range transport, Saharan dust events, biogenic vs. anthropogenic sources).

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Publications

  • Berchet, A., Zink, K., Oettl, D., Brunner, J., Emmenegger, L., and Brunner, D.: Evaluation of high- resolution GRAMM–GRAL (v15.12/v14.8) NOx simulations over the city of Zürich, Switzerland, Geosci. Model Dev., 10, 3441–3459, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-3441-2017, 2017.

  • Berchet, A., Zink, K., Muller, C., Oettl, D., Brunner, J., Emmenegger, L., & Brunner, D. (2017). A cost‐effective method for simulating city‐wide air flow and pollutant dispersion at building resolving scale. Atmos. Environ., 158, 181‐196, doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2017.03.030, 2017.

  • Brunner, D., Savage, N., Jorba, O., Eder, B., Giordano, L., Badia, A., Balzarini, A., Baró, R., Bianconi, R., Chemel, C., Curci, G., Forkel, R., Jiménez-Guerrero, P., Hirtl, M., Hodzic, A., Honzak, L., Im, U., Knote, C., Makar, P., Manders-Groot, A., van Meijgaard, E., Neal, L., Pérez, J.L., Pirovano, G., San Jose, R., Schröder, W., Sokhi, R.S., Syrakov, D., Torian, A., Tuccella, P., Werhahn, J., Wolke, R., Yahya, K., Zabkar, R., Zhang, Y., Hogrefe, C., Galmarini, S., Comparative analysis of meteorological performance of coupled chemistry-meteorology models in the context of AQMEII phase 2, Atmos. Environ., doi: 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2014.12.032, 2015.

  • Giordano, L., Brunner, D., Flemming, J., Hogrefe, C., Im, U., Bianconi, R., Badia, A., Balzarini, A., Baro, R., Chemel, C., Curci, G., Forkel, R., Jimenez-Guerrero, P., Hirtl, M., Hodzic, A., Honzak, L., Jorba, O., Knote, C., Kuenen, J.J.P., Makar, P.A., Manders-Groot, A., Neal, L., Perez, J.L., Pirovano, G., Pouliot, G., San Jose, R., Savage, N., Schroder, W., Sokhi, R.S., Syrakov, D., Torian, A., Tuccella, P., Werhahn, J., Wolke, R., Yahya, K., Žabkar, R., Zhang, Y., Galmarini, S., Assessment of the MACC reanalysis and its influence as chemical boundary conditions for regional air quality modeling in AQMEII-2, Atmos. Environ., doi: 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2015.02.034, 2015.

  • Knote, C. and Brunner, D., An advanced scheme for wet scavenging and liquid-phase chemistry in a regional online-coupled chemistry transport model, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13, 1177-1192, doi:10.5194/acp-13-1177-2013, 2013.

  • Knote, C., D. Brunner, H. Vogel, J. Allan, A. Asmi, M. Äijälä, S. Carbone, H. D. van der Gon, J. L. Jimenez, A. Kiendler-Scharr, C. Mohr, L. Poulain, A. S. H. Prévôt, E. Swietlicki, and B. Vogel: Towards an online-coupled chemistry-climate model: evaluation of COSMO-ART, Geosci. Model Dev., 4, 1077-1102, doi:10.5194/gmd-4-1077-2011, 2011.

Prof. Dr. Dominik Brunner

Phone: +41 58 765 4944

Projects

 

Collaborations

 

 

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