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Atmospheric science
George Mason University
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Baek and Tong developing emissions inventories

Elizabeth Grisham

Bok Haeng Baek, Research Professor in Mason's Center for Spatial Information Science and Systems (CSISS), and Daniel Tong, Associate Professor, Atmospheric, Oceanic and Earth Sciences (AOES), is incorporating field measurement data and remote-sensing satellite data collected during the pandemic period to calibrate human-activity-based emissions inventory using Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) Modeling System simulations.  

Via this project, the researchers will first establish a high-resolution calibrated bottom-up emissions inventory collected during the pandemic period that reflects the human activity and pattern changes during COVID-19.  

They will then apply these enhanced emissions inventory to the CMAQ Modeling System to test the model performance and adjust it with the Air Quality System (AQS) and the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) satellite data to calibrate the emissions inventory.  

This data fusion process can reduce the uncertainties of the human activity-based traditional bottom-up emissions inventory and will assist the researchers in accurately developing the calibrated bottom-up emissions data collected during the pandemic period for the air quality modeling community and air quality policymakers.  

The researchers received a total of $349,883 ($174,907 for Year 1 and $174,976 for Year 2) from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for this work. Funding began in September 2021 and will end in late August 2023. 

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