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TEMPORAL FEATURES IN OBSERVED AND SIMULATED METEOROLOGY AND AIR QUALITY OVER THE EASTERN UNITED STATES
Citation:
HOGREFE, C., S. PORTER, E. GEGO, A. GILLILAND, R. GILLIAM, J. SWALL, J. IRWIN, AND S.T. RAO. TEMPORAL FEATURES IN OBSERVED AND SIMULATED METEOROLOGY AND AIR QUALITY OVER THE EASTERN UNITED STATES. ATMOSPHERIC ENVIRONMENT. Elsevier Science Ltd, New York, NY, 40(26):5041-5055, (2006).
Impact/Purpose:
The objective of this task is to thoroughly characterize the performance of the emissions, meteorological and chemical/transport modeling components of the Models-3 system, with an emphasis on the chemical/transport model, CMAQ. Emissions-based models are composed of highly complex scientific hypotheses concerning natural processes that can be evaluated through comparison with observations, but not truly validated. Static and Dynamic Operational, Diagnostic, and ultimately Probablistic evaluation methods are needed to both establish credibility and build confidence within the client and scientific community in the simulations results for policy and scientific applications. The characterization of the performance of Models-3/CMAQ is also a tool for the model developers to identify aspects of the modeling system that require further improvement.
Description:
In this study, temporal scale analysis is applied as a technique to evaluate an annual simulation of meteorology, O3, and PM2.5 and its chemical components over the continental U.S. utilizing two modeling systems. It is illustrated that correlations were insignificant on the intra-day time scale for all variables, suggesting that these models in the setup used for this study were not skillful in simulating the higher-frequency variations in meteorological variables and the levels of all pollutants. The models exhibited greatest skills at capturing longer-term (seasonal) fluctuations for temperature, wind speed, O3, sulfate and nitrate. Correlations for total PM2.5, ammonium, elemental carbon (EC), organic carbon (OC) and crustal PM2.5 correlations were highest for the synoptic time scale implying problems with factors other than meteorology, such as emissions or lateral chemical boundary conditions, in capturing the baseline fluctuations.