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Regional Background Fine Particulate Matter
Citation:
NAPELENOK, S., J. Arnold, K. FOLEY, AND D. K. Henze. Regional Background Fine Particulate Matter. Chapter 2, Douw G. Steyn and S.T. Rao (ed.), Air Pollution Modeling and its Applications XX. Springer Netherlands, , Netherlands, 2.32(C):277-280, (2010).
Impact/Purpose:
The National Exposure Research Laboratory′s (NERL′s) Atmospheric Modeling and Analysis Division (AMAD) conducts research in support of EPA′s mission to protect human health and the environment. AMAD′s research program is engaged in developing and evaluating predictive atmospheric models on all spatial and temporal scales for forecasting the Nation′s air quality and for assessing changes in air quality and air pollutant exposures, as affected by changes in ecosystem management and regulatory decisions. AMAD is responsible for providing a sound scientific and technical basis for regulatory policies based on air quality models to improve ambient air quality. The models developed by AMAD are being used by EPA, NOAA, and the air pollution community in understanding and forecasting not only the magnitude of the air pollution problem, but also in developing emission control policies and regulations for air quality improvements.
Description:
A modeling system composed of the global model GEOS-Chem providing hourly lateral boundary conditions to the regional model CMAQ was used to calculate the policy relevant background level of fine particulate: matter. Simulations were performed for the full year of 2004 over the domain covering the continental United States. The influence on particulate matter from boundary conditions was quantified using the decoupled direct method in three dimensions. Similar to base CMAQ particulate concentrations themselves, background levels and the influence of the boundaries were found to be highly variable spatially and temporally in the domain.