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Abstract: We investigated the influence of meteorological factors that affect ozone in summer using both measurement analysis and numerical simulation. The results show that there is a close relationship between changes in meteorological conditions and variations in ozone concentrations over the central Kanto area. In summer, up to 84% of long-term variations in peak ozone concentrations may be accounted for by changes in the seasonally averaged daily maximum temperatures and seasonally averaged wind speeds. The ozone episodes in the Kanto region are dominated by three major patterns, of which Patterns I and II are regular summertime pressure patterns with a 26% and 16% frequency of occurrence, respectively. A detailed process analysis of ozone formation under urban heat island (UHI) at two areas in the Kanto region – urban and rural area – indicates that ozone formation is mainly controlled by chemistry, dry deposition, vertical transport, and horizontal transport processes. The groundlevel ozone concentrations are enhanced mainly by the vertical mixing of ozone-rich air from aloft, whereas dry deposition process mainly depletes ozone. Horizontal transport and chemistry processes play opposite roles in the net change of ozone concentration between the two areas. The results of numerical simulations also indicate that the sea breeze has significant effects on the ozone accumulation and distribution in the Kanto area. The high ozone was first observed in urban area and then was transported to the rural area by sea breeze. At rural area, the highest ozone concentrations were found in late afternoon, about two hours later in comparison with the urban area. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The heat island phenomenon and degradation of the urban thermal environmental have become serious problems in Japan. In order to improve the outdoor thermal environment, it is necessary to understand quantitatively the effects of various measures. In this paper, the authors have performed coupled simulations of convection, radiation and conduction to evaluate the outdoor thermal environment over different urban blocks – Ōtemachi as representative of a high-rise area and Kyobashi as a mid-rise area in Tokyo, Japan – to compare the effects of measures such as the heat release point and means of air-conditioning, greening, high surface albedo, and traffic volume. The results showed that the effectiveness of moderation countermeasures differed according to the configuration of the urban blocks. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this present study, the wind environment was evaluated for local void domain at pedestrian level in the aspect of ventilation performance and thermal comfort. Exceedance probability analysis was applied as the main approach in order to estimate the uncertainties associated with the influence of climate on wind environment. Two criteria were proposed based on local air change rate and local kinetic energy respectively, which are domain-based indices allowing comprehensive estimation of local wind environment. Calculating output of these criteria in the form of cumulative distribution function forms a ground for reliability analysis of inadequate ventilation or thermal discomfort. A simple street canyon situated in Tokyo, defined as void model, was applied as an illustration of the new criteria in evaluating the local wind environment at ground level. The influences of two configuration factors: orientation and aspect ratio of the void model were investigated by CFD simulation. The results demonstrated that both factors show great influences on local ventilation performance, which also indicated the practicability and effectiveness of the proposed criteria to help achieving good wind environmental design. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We have assessed the contributions of individual physical and chemical atmospheric processes on ozone formation under different weather conditions during a typical summer month (August 2005) using the MM5/CMAQ modelling system. We found that the ozone episodes in the Kanto region are dominated by three major patterns, of which Patterns I and II are regular summertime pressure patterns with a 26% and 16% frequency of occurrence, respectively. A process analysis at two typical sites in the Kanto region – one located in the central region of Tokyo and the other located in the rural areas of Kanto – indicates that ozone formation is mainly controlled by advection, vertical diffusion, dry deposition, and chemical processes. The ground-level ozone concentrations are enhanced mainly by the vertical mixing of ozone-rich air from aloft, whereas the dry deposition and chemical processes mainly deplete ozone. By investigating the effects of each process under different weather conditions, we found that the significant decrease in ozone removal due to the chemical and advection processes under conditions of high stagnation is the most important cause of the enhanced levels of ozone in the central region of Tokyo. The results of this study can contribute to a better understanding of ozone formation in the Kanto region, and they may be valuable for local policy makers for further development planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following a nuclear accident, on-site gamma dose rates provide the most complete record of atmospheric releases of both long- and short-lived radionuclides. However, they are seldom used for source inversion, because the radionuclide composition is unknown. This prevents the estimation of short-lived radionuclide releases. In this study, a method using on-site gamma dose rates is developed with the aim of determining the source term, including both long- and short-lived radionuclides. To reduce the uncertainties involved in source inversion, the proposed method uses reactor physics to obtain an a priori radionuclide composition and a reverse source term estimate as an a priori release rate. A weighted additive model is derived to handle the conflicts between the priors from different mechanisms and simultaneously incorporate them into the source inversion. The proposed method is applied to the Fukushima Daiichi accident and validated against both the on-site gamma dose rates and the regional measurements of Cs-137. The results demonstrate that the resolved a posteriori source term combines the advantages of both priors and substantially improves the predictions of the on-site gamma dose rates. Given a detailed a priori release rate, this approach also improves the regional predictions of both airborne and deposited Cs-137 concentrations., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

We assessed the ability of the MM5/CMAQ model to predict ozone (O3) air quality over the Kanto area and to investigate the factors that affect simulation of O3. We find that the coupled MM5/CMAQ model is a useful tool for the analysis of urban environmental problems. The simulation results were compared with observational data and were found to accurately replicate most of the important observed characteristics. The initial and boundary conditions were found to have a significant effect on simulated O3 concentrations. The results show that on hot and dry days with high O3 concentration, the CMAQ model provides a poor simulation of O3 maxima when using initial and boundary conditions derived from the CMAQ default data. The simulation of peak O3 concentrations is improved with the JCAP initial and boundary conditions. On mild days, the default CMAQ initial and boundary conditions provide a more realistic simulation. Meteorological conditions also have a strong impact on the simulated distribution and accumulation of O3 concentrations in this area. Low O3 concentrations are simulated during mild weather conditions, and high concentrations are predicted during hot and dry weather. By investigating the effects of different meteorological conditions on each model process, we find that advection and diffusion differ the most between the two meteorological regimes. Thus, differences in the winds that govern the transport of O3 and its precursors are likely the most important meteorological drivers of ozone concentration over the central Kanto area.