Improving SO2 emissions from the point sources over the Middle East using satellite observations and inverse modeling.

The Middle East faces important challenges from severe air pollution, marked by natural factors from frequent dust storms and human-induced emissions, notably SO2 from power and desalination plants. These emissions significantly degrade air quality and contribute to sulfate aerosol formation, impacting climate and cloud formation. Accurate SO2 emissions representation in this challenging environment is crucial. We aim to enhance the current SO2 emission inventory by integrating satellite SO2 observations and the FLEXPART-WRF model, driven by meteorological data from the WRF 10km resolution model run in 2016. In particular, we adapted the WRF-Chem’s code for simulating the major SO2 sinks (in cloud scavenging, dry and wet deposition, SO2 oxidation by OH and H2O2) into the FLEXPART-WRF model. It allowed us to exclude the “background” SO2 column loadings caused by the spatially distributed emissions and to invert the SO2 emissions from the strong point sources on a daily basis. The improved SO2 emission inventory is open to the community.