Air Quality Forecast for Arctic Communities (AURORAE) service

The AUROARE service is a web interface consisting in a visual tool to monitor the air quality of the North European countries on daily basis and to provide a two-day forecast of particulate matter concentrations. The web page is designed for non-scientific users such as communities, stakeholders and citizens. The air pollution near-real-time concentrations and the forecast are visualized on the map as two separate layers, each monitoring station is represented as a dot and depending on its color the air quality is classified from good to unhealthy. In addition, the monitored past trend of air pollution at a selected station and the forecast at hourly resolution can be visualized a separate interactive window. The particulate matter forecast released every day for each station can be downloaded as a txt file and the AURORAE service also provides a daily bulletin reporting the forecast for all the stations to provide a broad overview of air pollution status for all Northern communities. The AURORAE service website is under development and is expected to be launched soon. 

Figure 1: The pilot version of the AUROAE website

OBJECTIVE

By using an AI-based approach with local observations the “Local Atmospheric Pollutant Forecast” Service will improve forecasts by regional chemical models of anthropogenic and natural causes of air pollution in the Arctic providing benefits to local communities, and supporting decisions regarding pollution reduction and prevention.

Photo by MonikaP at Pixabay

DESCRIPTION

The fast environmental change in the Arctic due to global warming provides favourable conditions for new economic activities in the region and population growth. These processes lead to increased air pollution from traffic, heating and industrial production, while the higher population density increases the risk for accidental forest fires and exposure to air pollution. Atmospheric pollution forecasts are essential for mitigation of pollution and for emergency preparedness in Arctic villages and cites.

We use an AI-based approach linking in-situ observations of Arctic particulate matter (PM) to European scale predictions of air pollution chemical models and meteorological variables to inform on airborne pollution impacts. At about a hundred monitoring stations located in the European Arctic and in North Europe, the Pilot Service apply an AI methodology to combine the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service particulate matter forecasts and meteorological variables forecast with local observations of atmospheric pollution belonging to European 

 Environmental Agency and Finnish Meteorological Institute networks. We use an AI model to improve local two-days forecasts of particulate matter, which are otherwise based solely on large-scale dynamical model predictions. We include information on high particulate levels at hourly resolution, these cannot be always accurately predicted by large-scale dynamical models due to large uncertainties in specifying local sources of air pollution. 

The air pollution forecasts will provide benefits to local communities, and support decisions regarding pollution reduction and prevention. The Pilot Service will further improve the use of local air pollution observations by providing more precise forecasts. It will bring feedback information to Copernicus models on their errors at the local scale and in this way improve the understanding of deficiencies in defining sources of air pollution in the Arctic.