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Subprogram C4: Particulate Air Pollution  
Particulate Air Pollution - Concentrations, Transport and Sources  
The goal is to develop a basis for parameterisation of particle formation and evolution through mapping of concentrations and characteristics of long range transported paricles. The achieved parameterisations and model output data are continuously implemented in the work with various EMEP models for long range transported particles. The final product is supposed to include a description of the dynamical particle processes in the eulerian EMEP model to facilitate a description of number, area and mass of the long range transported particles. This work is done in close cooperation with several other Nordic research groups as DNMI, University of Helsinki and NILU.

The specific part within ASTA focus on field measurements of the major types of particles present in the Nordic atmosphere, their chemistry and physical properties to identify importand sources as well as the significant atmospheric processes. 

An important experimental activity providing data for the ASTA programme is measurements of PM2.5 and PM10 at various urban environments in the three major cities and three minor cities from Malmö in the South to Lycksele in the North. This network provides an assessment of the importence of long distant transport compared with local sources.

The contributions from ASTA are:

· Measurements of paricles variables as mass, size distribution, chemical composition and particle type are conducted at two background sites in Sweden, Vavihill at Söderåsen, Skåne and Aspvreten, about 100 km south Stockholm.

· Organising and hosting a database for particle data as mentioned above for other Nordic background stations specialised in particle measurements. A total of six stations are presently operating and two more will be established in the near future.

· Evaluating data from the database to provide a better knowledge concerning the characteristics of the Nordic aerosols, its dependence on sources, transformation and deposition. This will be a basis for the parameterisation and for the direct control of model calculations.

Hans Christen Hansson
ITM, Stockholm
hc.hansson@itm.su.se