Modeling traffic air pollution in street canyons in New York City for intra-urban exposure assessment in the US Multi-Ethnic Study of atherosclerosis and air pollution

We evaluated the Danish AirGlS air quality and exposure model system using air quality measurement data from New York City in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis and Air Pollution (MESA Air). Measurements were used from three US EPA Air Quality System (AQS) monitoring stations and a comprehensive MESA Air measurement campaign including about 150 different locations and about 650 samples of about 2 week measurements of NOx, NO2 and PM2.5. AirGlS is a deterministic exposure model system based on the dispersion models Operational Street Pollution. Model (OSPM) and the Urban Background Model (UBM). The UBM model reproduced the annual levels within 1-26% depending on station and pollutant at the three urban background EPA monitor stations, and generally reproduced well the seasonal and diurnal variation. The full model with OSPM and UBM reproduced the MESA Air measurements with a correlation coefficient of r(2) = 0.51 for NOx, r(2) = 0.28 for NO2 and r(2) = 0.73 for PM2.5. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved