A new methodology to assess the performance and uncertainty of source apportionment models II: The results of two European intercomparison exercises

The performance and the uncertainty of receptor models (RMs) were assessed in intercomparison exercises employing real-world and synthetic input datasets. To that end, the results obtained by different practitioners using ten different RMs were compared with a reference. In order to explain the differences in the performances and uncertainties of the different approaches, the apportioned mass, the number of sources, the chemical profiles, the contribution-to-species and the time trends of the sources were all evaluated using the methodology described in Belis et al. (2015). In this study, 87% of the 344 source contribution estimates (SCEs) reported by participants in 47 different source apportionment model results met the 50% standard uncertainty quality objective established for the performance test. In addition, 68% of the SCE uncertainties reported in the results were coherent with the analytical uncertainties in the input data. The most used models, EPA-PMF v.3, PMF2 and EPA-CMB 8.2, presented quite satisfactory performances in the estimation of SCEs while unconstrained models, that do not account for the uncertainty in the input data (e.g. APCS and FA-MLRA), showed below average performance. Sources with well-defined chemical profiles and seasonal time trends, that make appreciable contributions (>10%), were those better quantified by the models while those with contributions to the PM mass close to 1% represented a challenge. The results of the assessment indicate that RMs are capable of estimating the contribution of the major pollution source categories over a given time window with a level of accuracy that is in line with the needs of air quality management.

BELIS Claudio;  KARAGULIAN Federico;  AMATO Fulvio;  ALMEIDA M.;  ARTAXO Paulo;  BEDDOWS David;  BERNARDONI Vera;  BOVE Maria Chiara;  CARBONE Samara;  CESARI Daniela;  CONTINI Daniele;  CUCCIA Eleonora;  DIAPOULI E.;  ELEFTHERIADIS K.;  FAVEZ Olivier;  HADDAD Imad;  HARRISON Roy;  HOVORKA Jan;  HELLEBUST Stig;  JANG Eunhwa;  KAMMERMEIER Tom;  JORQUERA Hector;  KARL Matthias;  LUCARELLI Franco;  MOOIBROEK Dennis;  NAVA Silvia;  NOJGAARD Jakob Kleno;  PAATERO Pentti;  PANDOLFI Marco;  PERRONE Maria Grazia;  PETIT Jean Eudes;  PIETRODANGELO Adriana;  POKORNA Petra;  PRATI Paolo;  PREVOT Andre S. H.;  QUASS Ulrich;  QUEROL Xavier;  SARAGA Dikaia E.;  SCIARE Jean;  SFETSOS A.;  VALLI Gianluigi;  VECCHI Roberta;  VESTENIUS Mika;  YUBERO Eduardo;  HOPKE Philip; 

2015-11-25

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD

JRC91806

1352-2310,   

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1352231015304854,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC91806,   

10.1016/j.atmosenv.2015.10.068,