The paper investigates the air quality in the urban area of Warsaw, Poland. Calculations are carried out using the emissions and meteorological data from the year 2012. The modeling tool is the regional CALMET/CALPUFF system, which is used to link the emission sources with the distributions of the annual mean concentrations. Several types of polluting species that characterize the urban atmospheric environment, like PM10, PM2.5, NOx, SO2, Pb, B(a)P, are included in the analysis. The goal of the analysis is to identify the most polluted districts and polluting compounds there, to check where the concentration limits of particular pollutants are exceeded. Then, emission sources (or emission categories) which are mainly responsible for violation of air quality standards and increase the adverse health effects, are identified. The modeling results show how the major emission sources – the energy sector, industry, traffic and the municipal sector – relate to the concentrations calculated in receptor points, including the contribution of the transboundary inflow. The results allow to identify districts where the concentration limits are exceeded and action plans are needed. A quantitative source apportionment shows the emission sources which are mainly responsible for the violation of air quality standards. It is shown that the road transport and the municipal sector are the emission classes which substantially affect air quality in Warsaw. Also transboundary inflow contributes highly to concentrations of some pollutants. The results presented can be of use in analyzing emission reduction policies for the city, as a part of an integrated modeling system.

The aim of the study is to present the FAPPS (Forecasting of Air Pollution Propagation System) based on the CALPUFF puff dispersion model, used for short-term air quality forecasting in Krakow and Lesser Poland. The article presents two methods of operational air quality forecasting in Krakow. The quality of forecasts was assessed on the basis of PM10 concentrations measured at eight air quality monitoring stations in 2019 in Krakow. Apart from the standard quantitative forecast, a qualitative forecast was presented, specifying the percentage shares of the city area with PM10 concentrations in six concentration classes. For both methods, it was shown how the adjustment of the emissions in the FAPPS system to changes in emissions related to the systemic elimination of coal furnaces in Krakow influenced the quality of forecasts. For standard forecasts, after the emission change on June 7, 2019, the average RMSE value decreased from 23.9 μg/m3 to 14.9 μg/m3, the average FB value changed from -0.200 to -0.063, and the share of correct forecasts increased from 0.74 to 0.91. For qualitative forecasts, for the entire year 2019 and separately for the periods from January to March and October to December, Hit Rate values of 5.43, 2.18 and 3.48 were obtained, the False Alarm Ratios were 0.28, 0.24 and 0,26, and the Probability of Detection values were 0.66, 0.75, and 0.74. The presented results show that the FAPPS system is a useful tool for modelling air pollution in urbanized and industrialized areas with complex terrain

We determined the performance of different Circulation Type Classifications (CTCs) to stratify air pollutants concentrations in Polish cities in winter. Our analysis is based on 15 CTCs calculated by COST 733 as well as on 5 manual universally used manual weather type classifications. For this purpose we compared and tested the explained variation (EV) and within-type standard deviation (WSD) methods. Finally, EV method has been chosen for evaluating classifications for daily values of SO2, NO2, PM I O and CO as well as vertical dispersion conditions obtained from SODAR data. We also presented the methodology of choosing smog episode days based on 90-percentile values. For the winter smog episodes data from Krakow different classifications have been compared using Gini coefficient method. The best results for separate air pollution data series as well as for smog episode days were obtained for Hess-Brezowski Gro/3wetterlagen classification (HBGWL). Moreover, good results were obtained for the based on principal component analysis PCACA classification, Polish Niedzwiedz TCN2I, modified Polish Litynski LITTc, modified Lamb LWT2, and three modified HBGWL (GWTC26, OGWL, OGWLSLP) classifications. The same classifications except for HBGWL are good for SODAR data. For the best CTCs, the differences between various classes are visible, however a big scattering is still observed. Main urban air pollution problems arise in situations when flow with Southerly component is observed. Correlations between air pollution data and SODAR data (calculated for marginal means obtained for different classes) confirm a negative role of both low height of the ground-based inversion and long duration of the low-level elevated inversion in urban areas.