Skip to content

Commit

Permalink
Update index.html
Browse files Browse the repository at this point in the history
  • Loading branch information
KirstyPringle authored Aug 22, 2024
1 parent eda1f82 commit 877f843
Showing 1 changed file with 1 addition and 1 deletion.
2 changes: 1 addition & 1 deletion about/index.html
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -127,7 +127,7 @@
<h3>About the data</h3>
<div>
<p>This website shows the concentration of particulate matter air pollution (PM2.5) in cities around the world. Very few historical observations of PM2.5 exist before the year 2000 so instead we use data produced from a mix of computer model simulations and satellite observations.</p>
<p>For the most recent years (2000-2021) we use a dataset that combines ground-level and satellite observations of PM2.5 concentrations, from <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c05309" target="_new">Van Donkelaar et at (2021)</a>, this dataset can be found <a href="https://sites.wustl.edu/acag/datasets/surface-pm2-5/#V5.GL.04" target="_blank">here (V5 0.1 degree resolution)</a>.</p>
<p>For the most recent years (2000-2021) we use a dataset that combines ground-level and satellite observations of PM2.5 concentrations, from <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c05309" target="_new">Van Donkelaar et at (2021, V5 0.1 degree resolution)</a>, this dataset can be found <a href="https://sites.wustl.edu/acag/datasets/surface-pm2-5/#V5.GL.04" target="_blank">here.</a>.</p>
<p>Satellite observations of PM2.5 aren’t available for the years before 1998, so instead we take the historical trend in air pollution from computer models (<a href="https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-14547-2020" target="_new">Turnock 2020</a>); publicly available model data was taken from the <a href="https://wcrp-cmip.org/" target="_new">Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6)</a>, these are the climate models used for the IPCC assessment report. We used data from the <a href="https://esgf-index1.ceda.ac.uk/projects/cmip6-ceda/" target-"_new">UKESM submission to CMIP</a> (data is <a href="http://cera-www.dkrz.de/WDCC/meta/CMIP6/CMIP6.CMIP.MOHC.UKESM1-0-LL" target="_new">here</a>). The historical concentrations for the UKESM model are calculated using the emissions inventory developed through the Community Emissions Data System (CEDS) by <a href="https://https://gmd.copernicus.org/articles/11/369/2018/" target="_new"> Hoesly et al, 2018</a>
<p>Modelling global concentrations of pollutants is very challenging, and models are continuously evaluated and improved. Previous research has shown that the CMIP6 multi-model simulations tend to underestimate PM2.5 concentrations when compared to global observations <a href="https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/20/14547/2020/" target="_new">(Turnock et al., 2020)</a>. To address this issue and to ensure a smooth time series between the model and satellite data, we take the following steps:</p>
<p>For each city, we first calculate a three-year (2000-2002) mean of the satellite data for that city. Next, we calculate the three-year (2000-2002) mean of model concentrations for the same city. The ratio between these values represents the model's bias compared to observations. We then adjust (or "weight") the model values using this ratio. This is a similar approach to that taken by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1029/2023GH000812" target="_new">Turnock et al. (2023)</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1029/2023EF003697" target="_new">Reddington et al. (2023)</a>.</p>
Expand Down

0 comments on commit 877f843

Please sign in to comment.