Multiscale Impact of Fuel Consumption on Air Quality

Energy production from combustion of fossil fuels tends to dominate the emissions of criteria pollutants. Emissions derive both from large stationary sources with tall stacks such as fossil-fueled power plants, and from the ground level use of fuels in transportation. Management of these sources presents a challenge in the light of multi-scale processes that influence ambient concentration and exposure patterns. Directly emitted pollutants and those resulting from atmospheric chemistry, like O3 and sulfate, nitrate and some organic material in fine particles, are affected by phenomena extending over a range of less than a meter to 107 meters in spatial scale, and minutes to many years in temporal scale. Their environmental effects have an analogous wide range of descriptive spatial and temporal scales. Pollution phenomena can be thought of in terms of three major groupings: neighborhood−urban, regional, and continental−global. Currently, decision-makers are developing emission reduction strategies that conceptually integrate considerations over this entire range of scales. In keeping with conceptual integration, recent studies and analyses are bridging different spatial and temporal scales in observations and in mathematical descriptions. Some examples of contemporary issues falling within different scales are described that illustrate approaches to add insight for developing regulatory strategies. A key element in the technical approaches is the application of air quality and exposure modeling using spatially nested descriptions of atmospheric phenomena. The reliability of multi-scale models remains a concern so that analyses for U.S. regulatory applications combine the results of modeling with observations, and knowledge of spatially and temporally differentiated emissions.