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Progress Report to MDEOctober 22, 2009

Dr. Konstantin Vinnikov, Acting State Climatologist for Maryland

Prof. Russell Dickerson, Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science

University of Maryland at College Park, MD

Diurnal-Seasonal and Longer Time Scale Variation of

Power Plants Emissions at Marylandand other East Coast States

Partly supported by NASA

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• Time series of Hourly Emissions of SO2, NOx, CO2, Heat, Electricity

• Changes in Seasonal/Diurnal Cycles

• Regional Climatic ForcingUsed EPA Prepackaged Power Plants Emissions Data Sets:

http://camddataandmaps.epa.gov/gdm/index.cfm?fuseaction=emissions.wizard

Objectives:

-To look at diurnal and seasonal trends in emission for atmospheric budget studies;- To help NASA understand what a Geostationary Satellite

can do that a Polar orbiter cannot.

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MARYLAND POWER PLANTS EMISSIONS. Workdays - Weekends

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MARYLAND POWER PLANTS: HEAT & ELECTRICITY PRODUCTION

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MARYLAND POWER PLANTS: HEAT & ELECTRICITY PRODUCTION

MARYLAND POWER PLANTS HEAT & ELECTRICITY: Workdays - Weekends

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BAD DATA!

STATESSUMMER/

AFTERNOON HEAT FORCING

W/m2

NY 0.3NJ 0.7PA 0.5OH 1.2DE 1.4WV 0.6MD 0.5VA 0.2

Climatic Forcing 1 W/m2 ⟶ Global Warming ≈0.75 ºC

HEAT EMISSION BY POWER PLANTSCAN BE RESPONSIBLE FOR REGIONALCLIMATE CHANGE

THREE URBAN STATIONS:

THREE RURAL, HIGH ELEVATED MOUNTIAN STATIONS:

SCALES OF TEMPORAL AUTOCORRELATION IN SO2 VARIATIONS, HOURS

It is assumed that lag-correlation functions of observed temporal SO2 variations can be approximated as R(t) =exp(t/T), where t is lag, and T is decay time. This time is needed for observed anomaly of SO2 concentration to decrease e times. For two physical processes with decay times T1 and T2, resulted decay time T=T1T2 / (T1+T2). The resulted T is always smaller than the smallest of T1 and T2.

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Conclusions:

•Diurnal/Seasonal patterns of MD Power Plants SO2 and CO2 emissions have not been changing significantly during past decade.

•MD Power Plants NOx emissions have been decreasing during past decade. Diurnal/Seasonal pattern of these emissions has been almost inverted.

•OH, WV and PA do not show decreasing of NOX emissions outside the ozone season.

•There is a noticeable increase in Power Plants emissions on workdays compared to weekends.

•Heat pollution from Power Plants at MD did not show increasing tendency.

•Heat emissions by Power Plants at East Coast States can affect regional climate.

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