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The WRF-CMAQ Integrated On-Line Modeling System: Development, Testing, and Initial Applications
Citation:
MATHUR, R., J. E. PLEIM, D. C. WONG, T. L. OTTE, R. C. GILLIAM, S. J. ROSELLE, J. O. YOUNG, F. S. BINKOWSKI, AND A. XIU. The WRF-CMAQ Integrated On-Line Modeling System: Development, Testing, and Initial Applications. Chapter 2, Douw G. Steyn and S. T. Rao (ed.), Air Pollution Modeling and its Applications XX. Springer Netherlands, , Netherlands, C(2.9):155-159, (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:
Traditionally, atmospheric chemistry-transport and meteorology models have been applied in an off-line paradigm, in which archived output on the dynamical state of the atmosphere simulated using the meteorology model is used to drive transport and chemistry calculations of atmospheric chemistry transport model (CTM). A modeling framework that facilitates coupled on-line calculationsis desirable since it (1) provides consistent treatment of dynamical processes and reduces redundant calculations. (2) provides ability to couple dynamical and chemical calculations at finer time-steps and thus facilitates consistent use of data, (3) reduces the disk-storage requirements typically associated with off-line applications, and (4) provides opportunities to represent and assess the potentially important radiative effects of pollutant loading on simulated dynamical features. A coupled on-line atmospheric modeling system is developed based on the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) meteorological model and the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) air quality modeling system. The flexible design of the system facilitates consistent configurations for both on-line and off-line modeling paradigms as well as the systematic investigation of the impacts of frequency of data exchange between the dynamical and chemical calculations as well as feedback effects of chemical concentrations on meteorological process.