PM10 concentration in Reykjavík 2008 – 2012.

Today, Friday 19 July my student Rebekka Kienle presented her Diploma thesis:
PM10 concentration in Reykjavík 2008 – 2012. 

 

ABSTRACT

The particulate matter concentration in Reykjavík is rather low. Nevertheless, the daily limit value of 50 μg/m3 for PM10 is exceeded several times at the urban traffic monitoring station GRE in the center of Reykjavík in the time period 2008 – 2012 (on average 19 times per year). The annual average concentration is above the limit value, 20 μg/m3, for all the years, except in 2012. Comparing data from the GRE station with data from the urban background station FHG, different emission sources of PM10 in Reykjavík could be identified. Traffic plays an important role as an emission source in Reykjavík and contributes on average to almost one third to the total number of days of exceedances in these years. The PM10 level differs between the emission sources. Days of exceedances due to traffic show the lowest daily average concentration, whereas days of exceedances due to ash and dust storms recorded the highest PM10 concentrations.

Because negative health effects of PM10 have been observed in recent studies, it is important to predict the particulate matter concentrations in advance. A model to predict the PM10 concentrations in Reykjavík due to traffic and other local emission sources was constructed by Þröstur Þorsteinsson. The model is process-based with a few tunable parameters. Three model runs with different weighting of the parameters are compared. The objective was, to optimize the model, so that it reflects the measured PM10 values well. The investigations have shown that the model shows a good correlation between the measured and predicted PM10 concentrations but has problems identifying the days of exceedances due to local emission sources.

Dust storm to the sea 22 May 2013

Sunny and windy, thus dust storms on the south coast of Iceland.

At Skarðsfjöruviti

(green dot) the wind has been quite strong, over 10 m/s around noon

(data from vedur.is).

Satellite images show the dust storm nicely, around 13:50

This is a mix of bands – so false colors. The natural colors are below.

Dust storm and peaks in PM10 in Reykjavik on 16 May

Clearly visible dust storm from the South of Iceland around 13 on 16 May 2013.

The PM10 concentration in Reykjavik (GRE station) also peaked, but the source is a little unclear. The wind direction is northerly, and the wind is not very great (around 5 m/s). Traffic contributes, but why this relatively large peak, almost 250 µg/m3 ?

Poster at the Final Ice2sea Open Forum

University of Iceland was a partner in the EU project Ice2sea. Amongst results is a better constrain on potential sea level rise. Our contribution was regarding sliding of glaciers, as explained on the poster below.

We have developed a method where the changes in water flux reaching the bed determine the efficiency of the water system to transport water. In very short terms, sudden pulses of water have greater effect on the sliding velocity than “normal” variations, such as diurnal variation during summer.

Dust and ash blowing out to sea

Today, 14 May 2013, there was quite a bit of dust and ash blowing out to sea. The conditions were prime, sunny and windy, as can be seen from the wind velocity at Þykkvabær, where the average wind speed was over 15 m/s before noon today.

Satellite images taken at 11:50, 12:10, 13:30 and 13:45, show how the dust and most likely ash (although the distinction can be difficult now) was being blown out to sea by the northerly winds.

11:50

12:10

13:30

13:45