Improvement of PM2.5 Forecast in China by Ground-Based Multi-Pollutant Emission Source Inversion in 2022

Abstract

This study employs an ensemble Kalman filter assimilation method to validate and update the pollutant emission inventory to mitigate the impact of uncertainties on the forecasting performance of air quality numerical models. Based on nationwide ground-level pollutant monitoring data in China, the emission inventory for the entire country was inverted hourly in 2022. The emission rates for PM2.5, CO, NOx, SO2, NMVOCs, BC, and OC updated by the inversion were determined to be 6.6, 702.4, 37.2, 13.4, 40.3, 3, and 18.2 ng/s/m2, respectively. When utilizing the inverted inventory instead of the priori inventory, the average accuracy of all cities’ PM2.5 forecasts was improved by 1.5–4.2%, especially for a 7% increase on polluted days. The improvement was particularly remarkable in the periods of January–March and November–December, with notable increases in the forecast accuracy of 12.5%, 12%, and 6.8% for the Northwest, Northeast, and North China regions, respectively. The concentration values and spatial distribution of PM2.5 both became more reasonable after the update. Significant improvements were particularly observed in the Northwest region, where the forecast accuracy for all preceding days was improved by approximately 15%. Additionally, the underestimated concentration of PM2.5 in the priori inventory compared to the observation value was notably alleviated by the application of the inversion.