19 Aug 2020Source apportionment of pollution on Breathe London map

The Breathe London map now shows how different polluting activities contribute to the concentration of nitrogen oxides at Breathe London sensor locations across the city. Just search for or click on any sensor.

CERC modelled pollution sources across London for 2019 using our ADMS-Urban software to quantify the contributions from twenty source categories at different points. We integrated the modelling output onto the Breathe London map developed by CERC. This is the first time hyperlocal modelled source apportionment data has been displayed alongside current pollution measurements on an interactive public map. With a better understanding of which activities are causing pollution, leaders and communities can develop targeted solutions that clean the air and protect public health.

Starting today the Breathe London map also shows air quality alerts from CERC's airTEXT forecasting service for London and the South East.

Breathe London is a consortium led by the Environmental Defense Fund, including CERC, Air Monitors, University of Cambridge, National Physical Laboratory and Google Earth Outreach.

14 Aug 2020Changes to the CERC User Area

We have moved our User Area downloads to a new platform hosted by Citrix. We think the new system will make it much easier for you to find what you are looking for. You will still be able to use links on our website, but once logged in you can browse everything there is to download in a simple folder structure.

If you are currently registered, with a login and password, you will soon get an email from us inviting you to sign up to the new User Area downloads. Just click the link, which will take you to the 'Welcome' screen containing your details where you can enter a new password to gain access to the latest software releases, technical guidance, modelling support documents and more.

For any of our users who are not yet taking advantage of the User Area downloads, you can sign up via the online form. The User Area is for all customers with current support for one of more of our products.

31 Jul 2020London road traffic NOx emissions still below 50% of pre-COVID-19 levels

CERC continues to run its inverse modelling system (details in our April News item) to determine NO_x emissions in London as easing of the lockdown progresses. The latest model calculations up to July 17 show that whilst there has recently been some increase in emissions, they typically remain below 50% of the pre-COVID values. Consistent with this, London road traffic NO_x emissions for our airTEXT air quality forecasting using our ADMS-Urban model are currently set at 40% of 'normal'. Resultant forecasted NO₂ concentrations are low compared with usual levels but on average are showing a slight overestimate compared with measured values.

A higher resolution graph may be viewed here.

29 Jun 20202020 ADMS User Group Meetings to be held online, 18-19 November

We are pleased to announce that the 2020 ADMS User Group Meetings will be held on 18^th and 19^th of November. This year they will be held online due to the ongoing uncertainty around the COVID-19 situation. The meetings will include the usual mix of presentations by CERC staff and software users and are the ideal opportunity to hear the latest news and advice on new model features. More details will be published later this summer.

4 Jun 2020Latest CERC research published

Apart from offering environmental consulting services and developing world-leading modelling software, CERC is actively supporting and engaged in research in a range of environmental modelling topics, with three papers being published in recent months.

Our high resolution air dispersion model, ADMS-Urban, has been used to model air quality in Beijing. Research undertaken by CERC's CASE student, Michael Biggart at the University of Edinburgh, has been published in the paper 'Street-scale air quality modelling for Beijing during a winter 2016 measurement campaign'. One challenge of this work was to develop an emissions inventory for this megacity; model predictions have been compared to air quality measurements recorded during the NERC-funded project: 'An Integrated Study of AIR Pollution PROcesses in Beijing (AIRPRO)'. The figures show period-average measurements overlaid on modelled pollutant contours (NO2, top and ozone, bottom) for the region within Beijing's fifth ring road.

Results from one of the first applications of CERC's emissions-optimisation scheme have been published (Carruthers et al., 2019). This method applies a Bayesian inversion technique to high resolution ADMS-Urban modelled concentrations in order to modify pollutant emission rates based on sensor data. The scheme was tested in Cambridge using monitored data from four Cambridge City Council air quality reference monitors and 20 AQMesh sensor pods provided by the University of Cambridge. The optimisation scheme improved model accuracy at the reference sites by reducing estimated road emissions by 6.5% on average and changed the diurnal profile of emissions. This same scheme has been used to estimate emissions reductions resulting from COVID-19 restrictions in London (see 9^th April News item).

An article describing the 'Personalised Real-Time Air Quality Informatics System for Exposure – Hong Kong' (PRAISE-HK) system has been published (Che et al., 2020). CERC have been working closely with the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology on this smart city initiative since 2017. The project involves integration of a Linux version of ADMS-Urban in combination with the CMAQ regional model and WRF meteorological data using our Regional Model Link. A real-time personalised exposure app for mobile devices has been developed as part of this project.

For more information about our research, read more of our co-author publications, view our presentations, or contact us. You can also read how other groups are using our environmental software products for research.