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Improving the representation of formaldehyde in the Community Regional Atmospheric Chemistry Multiphase Mechanism (CRACMM) (CMAS 2023)
Citation:
Skipper, T., E. D'Ambro, F. Wiser, V. McNeill, B. Henderson, C. Baublitz, G. Wolfe, J. St. Clair, T. Hanisco, AND H. Pye. Improving the representation of formaldehyde in the Community Regional Atmospheric Chemistry Multiphase Mechanism (CRACMM) (CMAS 2023). CMAS Conference, Chapel Hill, NC, October 16 - 18, 2023.
Impact/Purpose:
Formaldehyde (HCHO) is a hazardous air pollutant and plays a role in the formation of criteria pollutants such as ozone and secondary particulate matter. Here, the representation of HCHO in the Community Regional Atmospheric Chemistry Multiphase Mechanism (CRACMM) is evaluated and potential improvements are explored. This analysis will improve the robustness of exposure concentrations used to determine cancer and non-cancer risk in AirToxScreen when CRACMM is adopted as the chemistry representation in CMAQ.
Description:
Formaldehyde (HCHO) is a hazardous air pollutant and a proxy for total reactive organic carbon (ROC) abundance since it is directly emitted and formed as a secondary product from oxidation of many ROC species. HCHO also plays a role in the formation of criteria pollutants such as ozone and secondary particulate matter. HCHO simulated by the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) chemical transport model is typically biased low compared to ground-based observations. Here, the representation of HCHO in the Community Regional Atmospheric Chemistry Multiphase Mechanism (CRACMM) is evaluated and potential improvements are explored. The bias in HCHO is characterized using a combination of ground-based HCHO observations from EPA monitoring networks, satellite-based observations of HCHO tropospheric column abundance from TropOMI, and observations from the NASA DC-8 aircraft during the summer of 2019. In addition, the potential role of missing secondary production is explored by benchmarking CRACMM against the Master Chemical Mechanism (MCM) and by implementing an updated version of the Automated MOdel REduction (AMORE) isoprene chemistry representation.