Special Issue "Air Quality in Greece"
A special issue of Atmosphere (ISSN 2073-4433). This special issue belongs to the section "Air Quality".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 24 November 2021.
Special Issue Editors
Interests: air quality; particulate matter; aerosol-cloud-climate interactions; cloud condensation nuclei; source apportionment; aerosol impact on climate & health
Special Issues and Collections in MDPI journals
Interests: atmospheric pollution; air quality; aerosol sources; aerosol chemical composition; oxidative potential; aerosol toxicity; aerosol impact on health
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The atmospheric environment in which we live in, and in particular airborne particulate matter and atmospheric pollutants, are often related to a diverse range of environmental, health and climate impacts. While according to UN, world’s population life expectancy at birth has increased by 5.2 yr between 1990-95 and 2010-15, air pollution is responsible for large reductions in life expectancy as high as 5.5 yr, as recently estimated for China. In lieu to the above, during the recent decades Europe has made significant efforts to reduce the emissions of several air pollutants. Nevertheless, air quality remains an important issue, with high levels of particulate matter, ozone and other gaseous pollutants from local sources, further increased by long-range transport of pollution, and thus posing a supplementary challenge. For several European countries, observations show that less than 50% of the measured fine PM concentrations (PM2.5) come from the countries’ own emissions. Especially for Greece,various studies have shown that the atmosphere over the Aegean Sea in summer is mainly affected by the northern part of the Black Sea and Istanbul.
Especially during the last decade, due to the economic recession in Greece, primary and secondary precursor emissions have become altered and intensified, as residents have switched from fossil fuel combustion to the uncontrolled burning of wood and biomass for heating purposes, impacting gravely air quality all over Greece during wintertime. On the other hand, during summertime, extensive forest fires impact large areas in the mainland and the islands.
For this Special Issue we aim to compile publications presenting high-quality studies of in-situ, remote sensing, as well as modelling studies of ambient aerosol in Greece. Solicited contributions include, but are not limited, to studies on long-term variability in ambient air pollutants, specific pollution episodes, emissions and/or emission sources, transboundary, long-range transport of air pollutants impacting Greece, and behaviour of atmospheric pollutants in particular in the context of human health and exposure.
Dr. Aikaterini Bougiatioti
Dr. Despina Paraskevopoulou
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- air quality
- aerosol sources
- seasonal variability
- atmospheric observations
- impacts on climate
- impacts on health
- atmospheric composition
- aerosol acidity/toxicity
Planned Papers
The below list represents only planned manuscripts. Some of these manuscripts have not been received by the Editorial Office yet. Papers submitted to MDPI journals are subject to peer-review.
Title: Changes in power plant NOx emissions over Northwest Greece using a data assimilation technique
Abstract: In this work, we investigate the ability of a data assimilation technique and space-borne observations to quantify and monitor changes in nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions over North-Western Greece for the summers of 2018 and 2019. In this region, four lignite-burning power plants are located. The data assimilation technique, based on the Ensemble Kalman Filter method, is employed to combine space-borne atmospheric observations from the high spatial resolution Sentinel-5 Precursor (S5P) Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) and simulations using the LOTOS-EUROS Chemical Transport model. Surface measurements of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) from air quality stations operating in the region are compared with the model output.
RESIDENTIAL HEATING IN GREECE: A detailed inventory of Energy Consumption and Emissions based on an extensive survey
Fameli Kyriaki - Maria, Papagiannaki Katerina and Kotroni Vassiliki
Abstract: The main use of energy in households is for space heating. Greece relies mainly on oil and biomass and secondarily on gas and electricity. It is very interesting though that the energy consumption profile for residential heating purposes has changed significantly the last decade in Greece in favour of biomass and gas consumption while oil consumption dropped significantly from 118.9 PJ in 2006 to 47.7 PJ in 2017.The main aim of the present work is to propose a methodology for the collection of detailed energy consumption data in local scale, with the help of an online survey, and the calculation of emissions from space heating. From the responses to the survey, local coefficients were developed for the spatial allocation of annual emissions in gridded form and in hourly scale in order to be used for applications with photochemical models. Survey's results revealed that the use of biomass burning as a main heating fuel is quite high at the colder areas, while it is popular as a secondary heating fuel at the urban areas. It was also found that the residential heating period in Greece lasts from October to April and it is even shorter at the southern Greece. In terms of emissions, CO and PM10 had the highest values since they are related to biomass burning from fireplaces. NOx emissions are mainly emitted by the oil burned in boilers.