Gordon, Mark D.2018-05-282018-05-282017-12-132018-05-28http://hdl.handle.net/10315/34547Between August 13th and September 7th of 2013, aircraft-based measurements of air pollutants were collected in support of the Joint Canada-Alberta Implementation Plan on Oil Sands Monitoring (JOSM). The Top-down Emission Rate Retrieval Algorithm (TERRA) was developed by Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) to estimate facility emission rates based on the aircraft measurements. Here, as part of a larger effort on TERRA improvement, ECCC's air quality model, Global Environmental Multiscale-Modeling Air-quality and CHemistry (GEM-MACH), was used as a surrogate source of concentration and meteorology data. The TERRA-calculated emission rates are compared with those input into GEM-MACH, for different TERRA configurations. This work evaluates the combination of TERRA and GEM-MACH as a proxy for testing the downward extrapolation schemes within TERRA and identifies possible avenues for GEM-MACH and/or TERRA improvements. Outcomes from this work can provide useful suggestions for future flight plans for top-down emission rate estimations.enAuthor owns copyright, except where explicitly noted. Please contact the author directly with licensing requests.PhysicsElectronic Thesis or Dissertation2018-05-28Air qualityAtmospheric physicsAtmospheric scienceVirtual aircraft-based samplingTERRAGEM-MACHAir quality forecast modelEnvironment and Climate Change CanadaAlberta oil sandsEmission rate estimationNumerical modelComputational physics