Evaluation of Local Ozone Production of Chamonix Valley (France) During a Regional Smog Episode

During the summer 2003 a POVA Intensive Observation Period (IOP) aimed at determining the sources of airborne pollutants and monitoring their concentrations in two French Alpine valleys: the Chamonix and the Maurienne valleys (see figure 1 for geographic location). The Pollution of Alpine Valleys (POVA) program was launched in 2000 after the traffic interruption under the Mont-Blanc that followed the tragic accident in the tunnel. The Mont-Blanc tunnel was reopened at the end of 2002 and caused the high duty vehicle traffic (about 1100 trucks per day) to be back in the Chamonix valley. The summer 2003 IOP took place from 5 to 12 July in the Chamonix valley. A high ozone event occurred from 5 to 14 July at regional scales and was well characterised by measurements at rural monitoring sites. To better understand the particular atmospheric circulation, and to study the chemical reactions of airborne pollutants within the valleys, mesoscale modelling is applied. For meteorological calculation, the fifth generation PSU/NCAR Mesoscale Model (MM5) was used at scales ranging from 27 to 1 km. MM5 was coupled with the Chemistry Transport Model (CTM) CHIMERE at regional scales and with the CTM TAPOM at a one-kilometre resolution. Simulations were performed for the period 5-12 July 2003 with different emission sets aiming at studying the impact of the international road traffic in the valley on airborne pollutant concentrations.