Project Action Plan
The implementation scheme for the NCAP-COALESCE project will revolve around three work packets, including (a) WP1 – Emissions (b) WP2 – Source apportionment and atmospheric transformation and c) WP3 – Climate and air quality impacts.
Building a carbonaceous aerosol emission inventory for India would include emission factor measurement in four key sectors: residential cooking and lighting (biomass fuel cook stoves, kerosene lamps), brick production (Bull’s trench kilns, clamp kilns), agricultural residue burning (in chosen districts in different regions) and on-road diesel vehicles (under different operating conditions). Full chemical speciation of the measured particles will be done to obtain emission factors BC, OC, and co-emitted species. These will be combined with activity data for all sectors nationally, to develop a spatially resolved national emissions inventory.
A “top-down” approach using source apportionment models such as positive matrix factorization and other Bayesian approaches will be applied to a combination of PM mass, chemical constituents, and meteorological parameters. Measurements of fine particulate matter (PM) and its chemical constituents, measured at various regionally representative locations across India reflecting different regional source mix, will be used to determine the sources of ambient PM2.5 in general, and carbonaceous aerosols in particular.
A modelling framework will be used, with a validated emissions inventory specifically representative of emissions in the Indian region, with evaluation against regional observations from in-situ and satellite sensors and remote sensing. A suite of global and regional climate models will be used in this project. Models will be used to examine effects on aerosol abundance (with seasonal and spatial resolution), source apportionment, total aerosol, and carbonaceous aerosol radiative forcing, trends in cloud properties, and rainfall. Workflow and data transfer among the work packets would be ensured leading to an integrated output.