Improving Air Quality through Cutting-edge Research

Ozone is the main ingredient of photochemical smog and is now the dominant air pollutant in Hong Kong and many other cities. It is also a greenhouse gas contributing to climate warning. The CEE atmospheric team have systematically investigated ozone and ozone-making ingredients and atmospheric processes shaping ozone in different regions of China. They measured gases and particles in carefully selected locations, conducted laboratory experiments, and developed state-of-the-art models to interpret the data. They were the first to investigate the long-term trend of background ozone in southern and northern China, and their finding on the rising ozone levels was adopted in the latest Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change’s Assessment Report 5 (IPCC AR5). Their findings on recent ozone changes have been a significant contribution to the Tropospheric Ozone Assessment Report, a global initiative with over 100 participating institutions. They recently studied “new” nitrogen chemistry and its important role in photochemical smog. Based on the new knowledge, they improved a three-dimensional air quality model (WRF-Chem) which is widely used by researchers and policy-makers worldwide. The improved model has been recently released to the international community, demonstrating the wide impact of their research. Their findings on long-range transport and local sources have aided the Hong Kong government in assessing its control policy on photochemical pollution in Hong Kong.

Joint air quality study with Guangdong Environmental Monitoring Center in Heshan, Guangdong

Prof. Wang Tao (left) spoke on air quality at a forum co-organized by Asia Society and AECOM on 6 Sept 2018