21 March 2011 - 22 March 2011
IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria

Meeting of the National IAM Network (NIAM)

A meeting of the network for National Integrated Assessment Modelling, NIAM, was held at IIASA on 21 March in conjunction with the meeting on the EC4MACS Life project the following day.

Summary of NIAM meeting held at IIASA on 21 March 2011

A meeting of the network for National Integrated Assessment Modelling, NIAM, was held at
IIASA on 21 March in conjunction with the meeting on the EC4MACS Life project the
following day. The agenda and full copies of presentations are compiled together with this
summary on the NIAM web-sire.

The meeting started with national teams summarising their activities and developments, some
based on the GAINS model and others on independent models. A welcome development is
the growing interest in EECCA countries in deploying GAINS, as reported by Katarina
Yaramenka from Sweden who has worked with Stefan Astrom and colleagues to help this
initiative. Work in progress by the Ukraine, Belarus and Russian Federation was described,
and there is now an EECCA coordinating group led by SRI Atmosphere in St Petersburg.
Another country newly implementing GAINS is France with plans as described by Simone
Schucht. Other countries reported a range of developments: including the UK with UKIAM
and validation of the BRUTAL urban sub-model, plus scenario analysis for combined heat
and power, and extension to address protection of ecosystem Sites of Special Scientific
Interest (Tim Oxley); work in Ireland addressing uncertainty and an impressive range of
scenario analysis to support policy development (Fearghal King), and Italy with detailed
urban air quality modelling of NO2 down to a 4x4 km grid scale together with detailed source
apportionment (Stefanova Milanova). Louisa Volta introduced the OPERA project and the
development of regional scale integrated assessment modelling. Under this project she has
been undertaking a survey of current IAM capabilities, and she summarised the
questionnaires she has received so far (NIAM members are encouraged to fill in
questionnaires and participate in this review, which will be placed on the NIAM web-site.
The following presentations were focused on specific topics of current interest, starting with
collaboration between Finland and IIASA on short lived climate forcing, and the MACEB
project (Mitigation of Arctic warming by Controlling European Back carbon). Sweden have
been linking their research on biofuels to GAINS by incorporating it in a compatible script;
and approach that can be used more generally to make research available for use by others.
For several countries international shipping emissions play an important role: Paul Campling
from Belgium talked about investigation of a scheme for emission trading to reduce such
emissions.

The next session addressed emissions and how projected emissions to 2010 had evolved,
causing problems both in meeting emission ceilings and for urban air quality. Fearghal King
illustrated this with respect to the 2010 NEC target for Ireland. Road transport emissions are
an example where projections based on expected reductions from Euro standards for vehicles
had not been realised, and Leonidas Ntziachristos talked about key uncertainties in
developing the COPERT model, and Jens Borken from IIASA explaining how COPERT is
used to define emission factors used in GAINS. Problems with road transport emissions
continued in to a collection of papers on urban air quality, starting with Jan Aben and
attainability of NO2 limit values as well as NOx emissions ceilings; and a forward look to
Euro V/VI emissions from trucks in urban driving cycles. Having participated in an
intercomparison study of models used in the UK against measurements, UKIAM/BRUTAL
had been applied to similar problems investigations of evolving emissions from road
transport implying that increases in the fraction of primary NO2 are as important as the
increase in estimated NOx emissions as real world measurements have become available.
Work in the University of Stuttgart (Jochen Theloke) and in Spain for Madrid also addressed
modelling combining different scales down to road-side concentrations; and Piotr Holnicki
from Poland showed modelling for Warsaw with analysis of source apportionment and
uncertainties.

The meeting concluded with Philippe Thunis from JRC Ispra outlining the FAIRMODE
project focused on urban scale modelling, with specific work packages focused on evaluation
of urban models and on emissions. NIAM modellers are encouraged to participate. Finally
Bertrand Bessagnet from INERIS described progress in urban modelling for the EC4MACS
project, with downscaling of the CHIMERE model to a 7x7 km grid and following a similar
approach to the urban enhancement adopted previously in the GAINS model.
The meeting adjourned at 5.30 with thanks to IIASA for hosting the day and for the excellent
food and wine tasting in a Heuringer which followed that evening.

Agenda

Presentations


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Last edited: 22 July 2013

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