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ETA-CMAQ MODELING SYSTEM'S CAPABILITY TO PROVIDE PM 2.5 AND AEROSOL OPTICAL THICKNESS FORECAST
Citation:
LEE, P., R. MATHUR, J. MCQUEEN, S. KONDRAGUNTA, J. PLEIM, J. O. YOUNG, M. TSIDULKO, M. SCHENK, G. DIMEGO, T. L. OTTE, G. POULIOT, K. L. SCHERE, AND P. DAVIDSON. ETA-CMAQ MODELING SYSTEM'S CAPABILITY TO PROVIDE PM 2.5 AND AEROSOL OPTICAL THICKNESS FORECAST. Presented at 7th Conference for Atmospheric Chemistry 2005 American Meteorological Society, San Diego, CA, January 09 - 13, 2005.
Impact/Purpose:
The objectives of this task include: (1) to continuously evaluate and analyze the forecast results to provide diagnostic information on model performance and inadequacies to guide further evolution and refinements to the CMAQ model, and (2) extending the utility of the daily air quality forecast model data being produced by NOAA's National Weather Service (NWS) as part of a NOAA/EPA collaboration in air quality forecasting, to EPA mission-oriented activities. These objectives include developing and maintaining a long-term database of air quality modeling results (ozone and PM2.5), performing periodic analysis and assessments using the data, and making the air quality database available and accessible to States, Regions, RPO's and others to use as input data for regional/local scale air quality modeling for policy/regulatory purposes.
Description:
In 2003, NOAA and the U.S. EPA signed a Memorandum of Agreement to work together to develop a National Air Quality Forecasting (AQF) capability. To meet this goal, NOAA's National Weather Service (NWS), the Office of Atmospheric Research (OAR) and the U.S. EPA developed and evaluated a prototype ozone forecast capability for Northeastern U.S. (Davidson et al, 2004). The NWS/National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Eta model at 12 km was used (Rogers et al, 1996), to drive the EPA Community Multi-scale Air Quality (CMAQ) model (Byun et al, 1999) to produce up to 48 hour ozone predictions. From the outset of the AQF System (AQFS) design, there has been considerable commitment to include predictions of fine particles with diameter less than 2.5 m (PM2.5). High volume of particle- matter suspended in the atmosphere is hazardous to human health and impairs visibility. The scientific challenges accompanied with PM2.5 modeling and verification are manifold. It involves better understanding of complex aerosol microphysics and chemistry (e.g., particle size distributions), multi-phase constituent dynamics, and heterogeneous chemical reactions. Preliminary works on PM2.5 modeling demonstrated the difficulty of getting the correct speciation and their partitioning (Morris et al, 2004). In general uncertainties in PM2.5 modeling arise from uncertainties in emissions from wild fires, sea salt and crust soil sources of particles. In lieu of all these necessary pieces of revamping on PM2.5 modeling, the current work is a simple illustration of one of the potential methodologies NOAA/EPA is pursuing to provide numerical forecast guidance for two additional 2-D surface fields: PM2.5 concentration, and Aerosol Optical Thickness (AOT).
The research presented here was performed under the Memorandum of Understanding between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and under agreement number DW13921548. Although it has been reviewed by EPA and NOAA and approved for publication, it does not necessarily reflect their policies or views.