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THE NOAA - EPA NATIONAL AIR QUALITY FORECASTING SYSTEM
Citation:
HERWEHE, J. THE NOAA - EPA NATIONAL AIR QUALITY FORECASTING SYSTEM. Presented at East Tennessee Ozone Study 2006, Oak Ridge, TN, May 17 - 18, 2006.
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:
Building upon decades of collaboration in air pollution meteorology research, in 2003 the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) signed formal partnership agreements to develop and implement an operational national air quality forecasting (AQF) system. Utilizing comprehensive state-of-the-science numerical models, the AQF system provides air quality guidance for state and local agencies to determine a local air quality index (AQI). The AQF system consists of linking the NOAA National Weather Service (NWS) operational North American Mesoscale (NAM) weather prediction model with the EPA's Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) modeling system to produce next-day hourly surface ozone (O3) forecasts on a horizontal grid spacing of 12 km. This linked AQF system was tested during the 2003 and 2004 summer ozone seasons for the northeastern U.S., and then became operational in September 2004. In August 2005, the operational AQF domain was expanded over the eastern half of the U.S. The current NAM model is Eta, but the NWS will switch to the WRF-NMM model during the summer of 2006; CMAQ linkage to WRF-NMM is already well under way. Example AQF predictions and analyses from the summer of 2005 will be shown, including comparison with ETOS O3 observations.
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. This work constitutes a contribution to the NOAA Air Quality Program. Although it has been reviewed by EPA and NOAA and approved for publication, it does not necessarily reflect their policies or views.