Source Apportionment of the Anthropogenic Increment to Ozone, Formaldehyde, and Nitrogen Dioxide by the Path-Integral Method in a 3D Model.

The anthropogenic increment of a species is the difference in concentration between a base-case simulation with all emissions included and a background simulation without the anthropogenic emissions. The Path-Integral Method (PIM) is a new technique that can determine the contributions of individual anthropogenic sources to this increment. The PIM was applied to a simulation of O3 formation in July 2030 in the U.S., using the Comprehensive Air Quality Model with Extensions and assuming advanced controls on light-duty vehicles (LDVs) and other sources. The PIM determines the source contributions by integrating first-order sensitivity coefficients over a range of emissions, a path, from the background case to the base case. There are many potential paths, with each representing a specific emission-control strategy leading to zero anthropogenic emissions, i.e., controlling all sources together versus controlling some source(s) preferentially are different paths. Three paths were considered, and the O3, forma...