Master’s research project offers at ICTA-UAB

The atmospheric modeling research group at URBAG is offering two Master’s theses for the January-September 2023 period. This offer will give you the opportunity to start working in the scientific field with colleagues from diverse backgrounds.

Study of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions in the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona:

Urbanized regions are responsible for a disproportionately large percentage (30-40%) of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, despite covering only 2% of the Earth’s surface area. As a result, policies enacted at the local level in these urban areas can, in aggregate, have a large global impact, both positive and negative. World-wide, municipal governments have realized this fact and, understanding that they possess some control over large emitters through urban planning, permitting, municipal operations, and local ordinances, have implemented GHG reduction initiatives. However, current methods for quantifying, monitoring, and benchmarking GHG emissions at city level based on energy and material use have high levels of uncertainty.

Recently, atmospheric models coupled with chemical transport models have been developed to analyze GHG concentrations. The Weather and Research Forecasting model (WRF) coupled with chemical transport (WRF-Chem) developed by NCAR (http://www.wrf-model.org/index.php) offers the ability to simulate the regional passive tracer transport for GHGs (CH₄, CO₂ and CO) (Beck et al., 2011). This project aims to apply the GHG-emission option of WRF-Chem to the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona (AMB) at high spatial resolution of 1km and ultimately compare results with CO₂ and CH₄ observations. The work will be developed according to the following tasks:

1) Become familiar with WRF-Chem (GHG option). There are online tutorials to guide the student through this process, as well as personal supervision and a large WRF and WRF-Chem user community that has made available a whole database of examples, problems and solutions, and help. The student will be given an account at the PIC (UAB) and PICASSO servers where WRF-Chem is already compiled and ready for use, which he/she can access via the terminal.

2) Prepare model input data: a) determine GHG anthropogenic emissions from different emission inventories (HERMES, EDGAR, TNO), b) update vegetation maps to be used in the online biogenic emissions scheme and c) prepare initial and boundary and initial conditions.

3) Simulate high-resolution (1 km) CO₂ and CH₄ concentrations for the AMB using WRF-GHG.

4) Analyze results: compare the model output against measurements from several stations and field campaigns in the AMB and attribute the changes in concentrations to different emission processes (photosynthesis, respiration, soil uptake and anthropogenic activities).

This study will be developed within the framework of an awarded Horizon 2020 project, and there is the possibility of continuing this research with a PhD contract at the completion of the master’s program. The EU project, entitled Integrated System Analysis of Urban Vegetation and Agriculture (URBAG, https://urbag.eu/) aims to find out how urban green infrastructures can be most efficient in contributing to urban sustainability. Green spaces such as parks and green roofs are also promoted in cities to improve air quality and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but there is still much uncertainty in how these various green infrastructures affect the urban atmosphere. This project will advance urban science by providing a comparative analysis of how various types of green infrastructure can perform differently in terms of improving air quality, decreasing temperature, and reducing the carbon footprint depending on the geography and weather of each city.

Requirements: Independent research potential, a high level of competence in oral and written English, and good programming skills (python, R, NCL, GRads; ArcGIS)

For further information or to discuss the position please contact Dr Alba Badia (alba.badia@uab.cat)

Refs: Beck, V., Koch, T., Kretschmer, R., Marshall, J., Ahmadov, R., Gerbig, C., Pillai, D., and Heimann, M.: The WRF Greenhouse Gas Model (WRF-GHG). Technical Report No. 25, Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany, 2011.

Study of anthropogenic  greenhouse gas emissions focused on the Greater Oslo Region:

Currently, around 54% if the world’s population is living in urban areas and this number is projected to increase by 66% by 2050. Air pollution (NO₂, CO, PM₁₀, PM_2.5 and VOCs) mainly from transport mobility, heating and cooling in cities, is considered the single largest environmental health hazard in Europe and is responsible for 467,000 premature deaths per year. Air quality has been identified as a major threat to human health and ecosystem, especially in urban areas, where exposure to air pollution is the highest. Urban air quality modeling has been the focus of considerable development during recent decades, driven by this concern. Numerous air quality models have been developed by different research groups and are being used for designing emission control policies.  The Weather and Research Forecasting model (WRF) coupled with chemical transport (WRF-Chem, Grell et al., 2005) developed by NCAR (http://www.wrf-model.org/index.php) with multi-layer canopy model offers (BEP+BEM) the ability to simulate the air quality at urban scale. The main objective of this work is to perform a reference model evaluation in terms of the relevant air pollutants and meteorological data in order to determine and quantify the model’s performance capabilities and weaknesses.

The work will be developed according to the following tasks:

1) Become familiar with WRF-Chem.  There are online tutorials to guide the student through this process, as well as personal supervision and a large WRF and WRF-Chem user community that has made available a whole database of examples, problems and solutions, and help. The student will be given an account at the PIC (UAB) and PICASSO servers where WRF-Chem is already compiled and ready for use, which he/she can access via terminal.

2) Prepare model input data (emissions, boundary and initial conditions, vegetation maps, etc) and run the WRF-Chem model with the urban canopy model (BEP-BEM) at high resolution (1km) over the city of Oslo.

3) Analyze results: prepare different scripts to extract the model results and compare them against a set of ground-based measurements from the Norwegian Institute of Air Research (NILU).

Requirements: Independent research potential, a high level of competence in oral and written English, and good programming skills (python, R, NCL, GRads; ArcGIS).

For further information or to discuss the position please contact Dr Alba Badia (alba.badia@uab.cat)

Refs: Grell, G. A., Peckham, S. E., Schmitz, R., McKeen, S. A., Frost, G.,Skamarock, W. C., and Eder, B.: Fully coupled “online” chemistry within the WRF model, Atmos. Environ., 39, 6957–6975, doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2005.04.027, 2005.;  Segura, R: TFM-Atmospheric modelling using WRF-Chem over the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Modeling for Science and Engineering, 2019; Guevara, M., Tena, C., Porquet, M., Jorba, O., and Pérez García-Pando, C.: HERMESv3, a stand-alone multi-scale atmospheric emission modelling framework – Part 1: global and regional module, Geosci. Model Dev., 12, 1885–1907, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-1885-2019, 2019.