ACPD Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions ACPD 1680-7375 Copernicus GmbH Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/acpd-10-30893-2010 Attributing and quantifying European carbon monoxide sources affecting the Eastern Mediterranean: a combined satellite, modelling, and synoptic analysis study Drori R. 1 Dayan U. 1 Edwards D. P. 2 Emmons L. K. 2 Erlick C. 3 Department of Geography, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA Fredy and Nadinne Herrmann Institute of Earth Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel 21 12 2010 10 12 30893 30925 This is an open-access article ditributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This article is available from http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/10/30893/2010/acpd-10-30893-2010.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/10/30893/2010/acpd-10-30893-2010.pdf

European pollutants are known to affect the Eastern Mediterranean (EM). However, there has been no previous study explicitly locating the European sources, characterizing their transport pathways, and quantifying their contribution to local concentrations in the EM. In the current study, spatially tagged carbon monoxide was used as a tracer for pollutant transport from Europe to the EM over five consecutive years (2003–2007) using the global chemical transport model MOZART-4. The model results were compared against NOAA/GMD ground station data and remotely sensed data from the Terra/MOPITT satellite and found to agree well. European anthropogenic emissions were found to significantly influence EM surface concentrations, while European biomass burning (BB) emissions were found to have only a small impact on EM surface concentrations. Over the five simulated years, only two European biomass burning episodes contributed more than 10 ppb to surface CO concentrations in the EM. CO enhancement in the EM during the summer was attributed to synoptic conditions prone to favorable transport from Turkey and Eastern Europe towards the EM rather than increased emissions. We attribute the apparently misleading association between CO emitted from European BB and CO enhancements over the EM to typical summer synoptic conditions caused by the lingering of an anticyclone positioned over the Western and Central Mediterranean Basin that lead to forest fires in the area. Combined with a barometric trough over the eastern part of the Mediterranean Basin, this generates a prevailing transport of air masses from Eastern Europe to the EM shore.

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