Monitoring and Assessment of Regional air quality in China using space Observations (MARCOPOLO)

In this paper we will present the FP7-project ’MarcoPolo’. The main objective of Marco Polo is to improve air quality monitoring, modelling and forecasting over China using satellite data. Within the preceeding DRAGON project AMFIC it was concluded that modelling of air quality are hampered by the rapidly changing emission data due to economic growth in China. In addition, air quality policies could not directly be related to changes in emissions. Therefore, within the MarcoPolo project, the focus will be placed on emission estimates from space and the refinement of these emission estimates by spatial downscaling and by source sector apportionment. A wide range of satellite data will be used from various satellite instruments to derive emission estimates for NOx, SO2, PM and biogenic sources. By combining these emission data with known information from the ground, a new emission database for MarcoPolo will be constructed. The improved emission inventory will be input to the regional and local air quality models.