Frank Baier - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Frank Baier

Remote Sensing Technologies and Applications in Urban Environments VI, 2021

Ambient air quality (AQ) is a recurrent issue in cities, exacerbated in low-and middle-income cou... more Ambient air quality (AQ) is a recurrent issue in cities, exacerbated in low-and middle-income countries. Global AQ impacts on health can be assessed using an aggregated health risk indicator (ƩRIs), derived from in-situ stations, chemical transport models (CTMs) or satellite data. AQ monitoring is well covered in the city of Munich (Germany): in-situ stations, POLYPHEMUS CTM with three domains, CAMS-Reanalysis of the regional model ensemble and satellite data from MODIS. From these data sets, the ƩRIs was calculated considering four major air pollutants (NO2, PM10, PM2.5, O3), using their respective relative risk for the mortality-all causes health end-point. Then, the ƩRIs from the models and the satellite data were compared to the ƩRIs in-situ by means of basic statistics, time series and violin plots and the mean relative difference (MRD). Using the ƩRIs allows to further observe the contribution of individual pollutants to the index. For the mortality all causes health end point between 2017 and 2018, ground observations and CTMs show an increase of ca. 12-13% when exposed to ambient air pollution. The difference between traffic and background stations can be observed: ƩRIs in situ mean is higher at the traffic station than at the background stations. This order is however reversed when considering ƩRIs mean from the models. The four CTMs simulate the ƩRIs well and its seasonality is also represented. Most of the data are spread around the mean and the median for all data sets and stations with an overall distribution skewed towards high values. With 0.5<r 2 <0.6, POLYPHEMUS/DLR yields medium correlation, regardless the domain, while CAMS-Reanalysis returns high correlation (r 2 ≈ 0.8) for all the studied stations. The MRD indicates an underestimation of the ƩRIs by CAMS-Reanalysis, while POLYPHEMUS tends to overestimate it for the larger domains (positive MRD). The difference in the r 2 between the two CTMs is due to their singularities: POLYPHEMUS/DLR uses free runs while CAMS-Reg uses a data assimilation process with station measurements (among them the two studied background stations). The overestimation of Johanneskirchen by POLYPHEMUS/DLR comes from its location nearby a power plant and the wind direction. Finally, the very high values in early 2017 can be explained by fireworks, which are not reproduced by models. It is show in this study that estimating a global health risk from air pollution is possible using in-situ measurements, models and satellite. Finally, satellite data can be helpful to assess the ƩRIs worldwide.

Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment, 2022

Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) has strong and adverse effects on the environment and human healt... more Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) has strong and adverse effects on the environment and human health. To estimate health risks and environmental impacts it is very important to know about current and prospective amounts of ground-level PM2.5 concentrations on regional scales. The in-situ station network in Germany is well developed but still provides only selective spatial information on air pollution. For a gapless monitoring additional data sets are required. Satellite data provides area-wide measurements of air pollutants and can depict their synoptic distribution in an adequate way. Chemical-transport models are moreover able to predict the amount and dispersion of aerosols in a very high temporal and spatial resolution, which makes them the key tool in monitoring air quality on regional and local scales. Modelling of aerosols is still very uncertain due to the complexity of accurately including aerosol properties and transfer processes, but also because of inaccurate emission dat...

The EPS/MetOp RAO project AGORA aims at exploiting chemical observations from GOME-2 and IASI by ... more The EPS/MetOp RAO project AGORA aims at exploiting chemical observations from GOME-2 and IASI by means of Data Assimilation, Chemical Transport Modelling and General Chemistry Circulation Modelling. Focus will be on global monitoring and forecasting of ozone and ozone related species. Therefore, two data assimilation systems will be applied. For continuation of GOME-1 and reanalysis purposes a well established sequential assimilation scheme will be used. It is based on an optimal interpolation approach using advanced assimilation parameters like error propagation and Chi2 monitoring and a CTM. For ozone analysis and forecasting the 4D-Var data assimilation system SACADA will be applied. It allows a consistent chemical analysis for both, conservative and reactive species. The underlying GCCM of SACADA enables to perform global chemical forecasts of the stratosphere. The system is currently prepared for routine operation at DLR with direct interface to the O3 SAF Level 2 products. The...

OECD Environment Statistics, 2016

Tellus B, 2011

An analysis of the severe weather event in November 2001 over the western Mediterranean is presen... more An analysis of the severe weather event in November 2001 over the western Mediterranean is presented focusing on satellite-based trace gas measurements from the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME) on board the European Remote Sensing Satellite (ERS-2). This study is supplemented by a synoptic analysis and simulations of the three-dimensional stratospheric chemical transport model ROSE. Arctic air masses moved rapidly from Scandinavia to the Iberian peninsula and were mixed with subtropical air over the still warm Mediterranean Sea. This caused severe thunderstorms and extreme rainfall along the coasts of Morocco and Algeria and later on the Balearic Islands. Associated with the meridional transport an intrusion of stratospheric air below 3 km above sea level was observed. The maximum potential vorticity (PV) derived from UK Meteorological Office analysis data was about 9.3 potential vorticity units (pvu) at 330 K at the equatorward position of 35 • N. These very high values went along with remarkably enhanced total ozone levels obtained from GOME backscatter measurements of collocated GOME/ERS-2 overpasses. Further investigation of GOME data showed unusually high levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO 2) above the western Mediterranean. We present a new method to derive the tropospheric content of nitrogen dioxide (NO 2) from a combination of satellite measurements and results of a chemical transport model. We show that about two-third of the total atmospheric content of nitrogen dioxide in the observed plume is found in the troposphere, due to lightning activity, advection and vertical transport in the thunderstorms from the planetary boundary layer (PBL) to atmospheric levels above clouds.

Agradecer não será tão somente problema de palavras brilhantes: é sentir a grandeza dos gestos, a... more Agradecer não será tão somente problema de palavras brilhantes: é sentir a grandeza dos gestos, a luz dos beneficios, a generosidade da cof?fwnça e corresponder , espontaneamente , estendendo aos outros o tesouro da vida .. "

Remote Sensing, 2022

In most countries, freight is predominantly transported by road cargo trucks. We present a new sa... more In most countries, freight is predominantly transported by road cargo trucks. We present a new satellite remote sensing method for detecting moving trucks on roads using Sentinel-2 data. The method exploits a temporal sensing offset of the Sentinel-2 multispectral instrument, causing spatially and spectrally distorted signatures of moving objects. A random forest classifier was trained (overall accuracy: 84%) on visual-near-infrared-spectra of 2500 globally labelled targets. Based on the classification, the target objects were extracted using a developed recursive neighbourhood search. The speed and the heading of the objects were approximated. Detections were validated by employing 350 globally labelled target boxes (mean F1 score: 0.74). The lowest F1 score was achieved in Kenya (0.36), the highest in Poland (0.88). Furthermore, validated at 26 traffic count stations in Germany on in sum 390 dates, the truck detections correlate spatio-temporally with station figures (Pearson r-va...

It has been recognised by many governments, notably the EU, that there is a need for timely and g... more It has been recognised by many governments, notably the EU, that there is a need for timely and good quality information on the state of the atmosphere at different scales from global to regional to local. This is necessary for environmental policy monitoring and verification. The GMES programme run by the EC and ESA is directed at this goal and is the European contribution to the international GEO programme. The project PROMOTE responds to these needs by delivering a service for ozone and UV monitoring and forecast, air pollution monitoring and forecast and climate monitoring and emission retrieval. The service is based on satellite and ground measurements and occasional airborne measurements. The data are integrated into models by means of the data assimilation technique known from weather prediction.

Vertically resolved ozone profiles are derived by assimilating satellite based ozone total column... more Vertically resolved ozone profiles are derived by assimilating satellite based ozone total column measurements into the 3D-NCAR-ROSE (NCAR Research on Ozone in the Stratosphere and its Evolution) chemical-transport model. This technique turned out to be a promising alternative to standard profile retrieval methods, since it allows to calculate high resolution 3D-fields of ozone distribution globally and in near real time.

In this study we investigate the variability and trends of NO2 pollution in 30 megacities by anal... more In this study we investigate the variability and trends of NO2 pollution in 30 megacities by analyzing different Earth Observation data sets. Multi-annual records of tropospheric NO2 from SCIAMACHY (2002-2012) and GOME-2 (2007-2015) are combined with the global urban footprint of each megacity as a proxy for urban growth. The consistent and homogenous data sets enable a global comparison of the findings for the megacities and a classification with respect to their socio-economic development. The possibilities of current and upcoming Earth Observation missions are discussed.

Fernerkundung bedeutet die berührungslose Messung geound biophysikalischer Parameter. Die physika... more Fernerkundung bedeutet die berührungslose Messung geound biophysikalischer Parameter. Die physikalische Grundlage hierfür bildet die Wechselwirkung elektromagnetischer Strahlung mit der Erdoberfläche und den Gasen und Partikeln in der Atmosphäre. Satelliten werden etwa seit Anfang der 70er Jahre im größeren Umfang als Plattform für verschiedenste Instrumente – je nach Fragestellung zur Erdbeobachtung eingesetzt. Je nachdem, ob beispielsweise die Beobachtung der Vegetation, der Verteilung der Wolken, der Gase in der Atmosphäre oder etwa die Bestimmung der Temperatur der Meeresoberfläche von Interesse ist, werden verschiedene Wellenlängenbereiche des elektromagnetischen Spektrums verwendet und die Instrumente entsprechend ausgelegt. So wird der für das menschliche Auge sichtbare Bereich des Lichts (etwa 0,4 Mikrometer (violett) – 0,7 Mikrometer (rot)) häufig zur Analyse des globalen Wettergeschehens verwendet. Messungen im kürzerwelligen ultravioletten und längerwelligen infraroten Sp...

Within the ARISE project (Atmospheric dynamics Research InfraStructure in Europe), an inversion m... more Within the ARISE project (Atmospheric dynamics Research InfraStructure in Europe), an inversion method for chemical tracers was developed based on the adjoint version of the SACADA-CTM (Synoptic Analysis of Chemical constituents by Advanced Data Assimilation - Chemical Transport Model). The method derives initial wind fields based on stratospheric trace gas observations. It is hoped that results can help to improve weather forecasting via chemical data assimilation. The SACADA-CTM is coupled to the German Weather Service GME global forecast system. SACADA-GME consists of a state-of-the-art chemical assimilation system covering stratospheric chemistry and dynamics. Using the adjoint of the tracer advection scheme with respect to observation-model increments (e.g., from satellite data) new initial wind fields can be derived. We investigate the system performance via twin experiments. With respect to real-world applications, we present results based on 6h inversions using realistic ini...

Since 1995 GOME column ozone data has been available on a daily basis. Global coverage is achieve... more Since 1995 GOME column ozone data has been available on a daily basis. Global coverage is achieved nearly every 3 days. To generate global ozone profiles from the column data a near-real-time service has been established using the ROSE 3D chemistry transport model. The model covers the relevant stratospheric heterogenous and nonheterogenous chemical processes. To nudge the model to the observed ozone column, an optimal interpolation data-assimilation scheme is used. Species are transported via a semi-Lagrange scheme using UK-Met-Office stratospheric analysis. Results of a validation campaign covering the 1996 period will be presented and discussed. Additionally the available online-products derived directly from model output will be described.

Meteorologische Zeitschrift

The service aims at providing a global reanalysis of ozone a nd related conservative and reactive... more The service aims at providing a global reanalysis of ozone a nd related conservative and reactive species in the stratosphere by exploiting observations from ERS2/GOME, ENVISAT/MIPAS, SCIAMACHY and GOMOS as well as UARS/MLS. The target period covers the years 1992 to present will be covered. In order to derive a global consistent record of stratospheric ozone chemistry an ensemble of data assimilation systems is applied. This suite comprises a Suboptimal Kalman-Filter (KF) using ROSE/DLR and four-dimensional assimilation (4D-Var) systems SACADA and BASCOE. The service is part of the GSE PROMOTE portfolio. PROMOTE is the GMES Service Element (GSE) for the Atmosphere (http://www.gse-promote.org). Reanalysis results are presented as well as first applications on the evaluation of coupled chemistry-climate models.

Im Rahmen des Projekts LandCover4Wind untersucht das DLR, welchen Einfluss Informationen zur Land... more Im Rahmen des Projekts LandCover4Wind untersucht das DLR, welchen Einfluss Informationen zur Landoberflache basierend auf hochauflosenden Satelliteninstrumenten auf die Prognose des Windfeldes im Bereich typischer Gondelhohen haben konnen. Nach US-Untersuchungen bestehen erhebliche Kostensenkungspotentiale durch Reduktion des Windprognosefehlers bei heutiger Anlagenauslegung (siehe NREL Report 2011). Ziel unserer Studie ist eine Verbesserung von Kurzfristprognosen bis 3 Tagen im Grenzbereich von Meso- und Mikroskala. Dazu wurde die Standard-Konfiguration des WRF (Weather-Research-Forecast Modell, siehe Skamarock et al., 2008) mit dem NOAH LSM Bodenmodul gegen hoher aufgeloste Landklassenkarten und Bodenprofile ausgetauscht. Auserdem wurde der Einfluss des Rauhigkeitsparameters z0 untersucht. Die Ergebnisse fur zwei synoptisch dominierte Situationen in Sud-Bayern zeigen, dass alle untersuchten Bodenparameter einen deutlichen Einfluss auf das Windfeld in 100 m Hohe haben konnen. Im Mi...