The PEEX special session on “Contribution on air quality in Mega and Gigacities” was held during the 14th International Conference on Air Quality (https://www.helsinki.fi/en/conferences/air-quality-2024; Helsinki, Finland, 13-17 May 2024). The Conference (organized and hosted by the University of Helsinki and Finnish Meteorological Institute) has focused on sharing latest advancements and research findings among research and expert communities. More than 250 persons attended this event. The Air Quality (AQ) conference main themes included: (i) Development, application and evaluation of air quality (AQ) related models for local to global scales; (ii) AQ monitoring and Earth observations; (iii) Air pollution sources and emissions; (iv) Health and environmental impacts; (v) AQ policies and regulations; and (vi) Climate change and AQ. Moreover, several special sessions were arranged: Transport emissions and policies; Machine learning/ AI supported air quality monitoring and modelling; Emissions from Europe’s livestock farming; Science and policy for clean air and caron neutral cities; From smart cities to citizen scientists.

On 16 May, the PEEX session included a series of oral and poster presentations about effects of atmospheric new particle formation on air quality, overview of key projects for environment and climate smart megacities, interactions of gigacity, multi-scale meteorology and haze, satellite view of new particle formation in Chinese gigacity, vertical pollutant transportation through mountain valley breeze in city atmosphere, and other topics.

During the AQ conference, possibilities of establishing collaboration within PEEX frameworks were discussed with colleagues from the Charles University in Prague (Czech Republic), Univ Hertfordshire (UK), ARIANET (Italy), Max-Planck Institute for Chemistry (Germany), Aristotle Univ Thessaloniki (Greece), Dalian Univ of Technology & Fudan Univ (China). Moreover, on 14 May, a separate onsite meeting on PEEX collaboration took place with the Fudan Univ representatives.

See detailed programme (click on link “AQ2024 full programme download”) and published abstracts of the AQ conference (click on link “Link for the abstracts”) at: https://www.helsinki.fi/en/conferences/air-quality-2024/programme

Text by: PEEX HQ Office, Helsinki