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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">EGUsphere</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>EGUsphere</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub"></issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/egusphere-2025-4947</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Surface PM&lt;sub&gt;2.5&lt;/sub&gt; Air Pollution in 2022 India: Emission Updates, WRF-Chem Model Evaluation, and Source Attribution</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Zhou</surname>
<given-names>Mi</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8600-1503</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Mauzerall</surname>
<given-names>Denise L.</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Velamuri</surname>
<given-names>Viswanath</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Kota</surname>
<given-names>Sri Harsha</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Nambiar</surname>
<given-names>Malini</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Xie</surname>
<given-names>Yuanyu</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Princeton University, USA</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment, Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, USA</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>20</day>
<month>11</month>
<year>2025</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2025</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>37</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2025 Mi Zhou et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2025</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2025/egusphere-2025-4947/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2025/egusphere-2025-4947/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2025/egusphere-2025-4947/egusphere-2025-4947.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2025/egusphere-2025-4947/egusphere-2025-4947.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>India experiences some of the highest PM&lt;sub&gt;2.5&lt;/sub&gt; concentrations globally. Understanding the spatiotemporal variations of PM&lt;sub&gt;2.5&lt;/sub&gt; and its source attribution requires robust air quality modeling supported by up-to-date emission inventories. Here we present the first WRF-Chem model evaluation and source attribution analysis for India for 2022, supported by updates in sectoral emission inventories and model schemes. We incorporate an updated residential emission inventory reflecting recent transitions to cleaner fuels in Indian households and develop a plant-level inventory for Indian coal-fired power plants. Further major improvements include model updates to the secondary organic aerosol scheme and an improved representation of near-surface pollutant mixing. Collectively our improvements result in a simulation with annual PM&lt;sub&gt;2.5&lt;/sub&gt; bias of only 0.2&amp;plusmn;16.9 &amp;mu;g/m&lt;sup&gt;3&lt;/sup&gt; (0 &amp;plusmn; 31 %) across 288 surface monitoring sites in South Asia. We find that, compared to earlier studies, in 2022 India&apos;s residential sector remained the dominant source of PM&lt;sub&gt;2.5&lt;/sub&gt; in the Indo-Gangetic Plain, but nationally ranked second in population-weighted (PW) mean PM&lt;sub&gt;2.5&lt;/sub&gt; concentrations contributing 15 % (7.3 &amp;mu;g/m&lt;sup&gt;3&lt;/sup&gt;). Instead, industrial emissions emerged as the largest domestic contributor to national PW mean PM&lt;sub&gt;2.5&lt;/sub&gt; (18 %, 8.6 &amp;mu;g/m&lt;sup&gt;3&lt;/sup&gt;), with urban hotspots including Delhi and Mumbai. The power sector contributions ranked third nationally (13 %, 6.1 &amp;mu;g/m&lt;sup&gt;3&lt;/sup&gt;) and was particularly influential in central India. Transboundary transport contributed more than any individual domestic source nationally (27 %, 12.8 &amp;mu;g/m&lt;sup&gt;3&lt;/sup&gt;). These findings highlight the benefits of India&apos;s partial residential sector transition toward cleaner fuels, while underscoring the growing consequence of industrial and power sector emissions that have limited pollution controls.</p>
</abstract>
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