2021 Conference Call for Papers

The energy system is currently responsible for the majority of U.S. emissions of criteria air pollutants, greenhouse gases, and short-lived climate forcing pollutants. Understanding how the energy system may evolve in the future and the resulting implications on the environment is critical if environmental decision-makers are to address these challenges proactively and efficiently. The goal of this session is to highlight research efforts involved in exploring the linkages among air quality, climate and energy, with a focus on supporting decision-making at federal, state or local levels. Among the topics that are appropriate for inclusion are:

• Scenario approaches for examining energy system futures, including exploring linkages between population growth, economic growth, land use change, climate change, technology change (in including cleantech), policy and energy
• Impact of the future energy system on sustainability and vulnerability metrics
• Translating energy system modeling into climate and air quality impacts
• Identifying interactions between strategies for climate mitigation and air quality management, including quantification of co-benefits and holistic management strategies that simultaneously meet both goals
• Models, tools and methodologies for assessing air, climate and energy linkages

Recent advances have enabled the use of cloud computing for atmospheric model applications. Use of cloud computing avoids the use of in-house HPC resources and the associated costs of maintenance, while leveraging the use of state-of-the-art resources from multiple cloud vendors. The objective of this session is to invite papers that focus on using cloud computing resources that can be deployed on-demand for research and applications. The topics for this session will include:

• Running any of WRF/SMOKE/MOVES/CMAQ, etc. on the Cloud
• Development of containerized instances of models
• Cost/benefit analyses of using different cloud computing platforms
• Best practices for transitioning from in-house HPC to commercial cloud computing platforms

This session is dedicated to the application of innovative methodologies for preparing and processing emissions for air quality modeling applications. Techniques to improve estimates of wild fires, dust and biogenic emissions, and temporal allocation of anthropogenic sources are of special interest for this session. Session topics include:

• Updates to inventories and emissions processing
• Emissions from alternative fuel use (e.g., bio-fuels in the transportation sector)
• Emissions from aviation activities
• Projection of emissions to future-year scenarios
• Inverse modeling

Typically, a limited number of specific simulations using chemical transport models (CTMs) or Gaussian plume models are used to derive relationships between emissions from particular sources and a response variable (pollutant concentration, health impact, etc.) for specific locations. We want to discuss here the potential usages/applications of Machine Learning (ML) and Reduced form models (RFM) that are computationally efficient and allow users to rapidly assess air quality impacts for a large number of emission scenarios, making them especially useful as screening tools for evaluating policy scenarios.

There have been many ML and RFM implementations on air quality forecasting in recent years and this session focuses on the development, evaluation, and application of ML and RFMs. Topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Developing and evaluating ML and RFMs
• Inter-comparison of ML and RFMs
• Global or regional application of ML and RFMs on air quality, human health, ecosystem or other impacts

Work in recent years has vastly improved the science of air quality and methodologies for modeling and analyzing the distribution of air pollutants at various temporal and spatial scales. Such advances were motivated by the results from the multitude of applications and evaluations of air quality models that addressed various research, development and regulatory modeling issues. We seek abstracts that illustrate innovative methodologies and process algorithms in air quality modeling. Session topics include:

• Adjoint models
• Urban-scale and fine scale modeling and applications
• New mechanisms of chemical reactions and processes for air quality modeling
• Production and decay of hazardous air pollutants (HCHO, acetaldehyde, acrolein, nitroPAHs)
• Reaction kinetics and mechanisms for heterogeneous chemistry that affect gas and aerosol compounds, including in-cloud chemistry
• Modeling assimilation techniques
• Dust models

The purpose of this session is to present modeling approaches for various applications ranging from exposure assessments in support of health studies to near-source assessments such as near-roadway studies or community-scale applications. A variety of models can provide these detailed, spatially-, and temporally-resolved concentrations in support of environmental health studies. Models also provide an opportunity to examine how changes in emissions affect near-road air quality or other near-to-source impacts. Local governments and community groups may be interested in what if scenarios such as how to optimize traffic patterns around heavily polluted areas. For example, when schools are located near roadways, models can help to examine potential impacts on children's health or the relative contribution of school-related exposure compared to, or combined with, home-related exposure. The topics for this session will involve development, evaluation and application of models with the following focal areas:

• Air quality modeling for exposure assessments in support of environmental health studies
• Dispersion model development for applications with near-source complexities
• Evaluation and inter-comparison of models for near roadway applications
• Decision support tools to quantify risk of human exposure
• Air quality applications focused on inequitable pollution exposures in different communities
• Modeling studies that focus on exposure disparities and environmental justice-related issues at local to regional to national scales

Both observations and modeling studies have demonstrated the long-range inter-continental transport of pollutants. Changes in emission patterns over different regions of the world are likely to exacerbate the impacts of long-range pollutant transport on background pollutant levels in another region, which may then impact the attainment of local air quality standards. Additionally, increased concerns of climate impacts on regional and local ecosystem disciplines have driven the need to utilize outputs from global models into regional modeling systems with different temporal and spatial scales. In such applications, downscaling approaches have been used to link the two modeling systems, with different physical and dynamical characteristics, to bridge the gap between global and local effects. This session seeks papers that discuss key issues related to the consistent coupling of atmospheric physical and chemical processes on local-to-global scales and related modeling applications. Topics of interest in this session include:

• Hemispheric chemistry transport models
• Multi-scale climate and air quality modeling applications
• Earth System Modeling and Feedbacks
• Dynamical and statistical downscaling
• Model evaluation and inter-comparison

Also, evaluation of air quality modeling systems (including meteorological and emissions models) is a key to verify the integrity of such modeling systems for various applications at various spatial and temporal resolutions. Abstracts are invited that present results of model evaluation studies, with emphasis on new techniques for model evaluation. Session topics include:

• Diagnostic tools
• Analyses and comparisons with data from measurement networks
• Process evaluation, including dynamic evaluation
• Sensitivity of air quality models to meteorological inputs

Air quality models continue to be important tools for guiding decision makers in preparing State Implementation Plan (SIP) applications to set standards for compliance. We seek abstracts that describe how air quality models are used in specific applications, with particular emphasis on the types of sensitivity and diagnostic analyses employed and on the model evaluation studies that were conducted for various applications.

This session's topics include (but are not limited to):

• Benefit assessment of air pollution control
• Statistical analyses and evaluation metrics
• Sensitivity and Source Apportionment
• Model inter-comparison
• Socioeconomic and health impacts

Papers in this session are devoted to analyzing data from both conventional and remote-sensing observational platforms. In particular, presentations are invited on the integration of data collected from different platforms, and on the use of new satellite data products in air quality modeling. Session topics include:

• Satellite processing products and its use
• Monitoring air pollution and meteorology
• Field measurement studies
• Laboratory smog chamber experiments
• Aerosol detection and sampling

In addition, new sensor technologies, due to their characteristics (e.g., low cost, small size, high portability), are becoming increasingly important for individual exposure assessment, especially since this kind of instrument can provide measurements at high spatial and temporal resolution, which is a notable advantage when approaching assessment of exposure to environmental contaminants.

This session will provide information about advancements on the developments and use of sensor technology for air quality and health studies.
Topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Novel air sensor technologies for monitoring air quality and health conditions
• Evaluation and validation of sensor performance
• Application of sensor network on air quality, exposure and health studies

Wildfires have continued to affect air quality and public health in several parts of North America. We seek abstracts that discuss one or more of the following topics:

• Methods to accurately quantify wildfire emissions
• Novel approaches for measuring and modeling wildfire events
• Impacts of wildfires on air quality and public health
• Impacts of changing climate on frequency of wildfires
• New Tools and Science-based solutions for mitigating wildfires