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A COMPREHENSIVE EVALUATION OF THE ETA-CMAQ FORECAST MODEL PERFORMANCE FOR O3, ITS RELATED PRECURSORS, AND METEOROLOGICAL PARAMETERS DURING THE 2004 ICARTT STUDY
Citation:
YU, S., R. MATHUR, D. KANG, K. L. SCHERE, B. K. EDER, J. PLEIM, AND T. L. OTTE. A COMPREHENSIVE EVALUATION OF THE ETA-CMAQ FORECAST MODEL PERFORMANCE FOR O3, ITS RELATED PRECURSORS, AND METEOROLOGICAL PARAMETERS DURING THE 2004 ICARTT STUDY. Presented at 4th Annual CMAS Models-3 User's Conference , Chapel Hill, NC, September 26 - 28, 2005.
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:
In this study, the ability of the Eta-CMAQ forecast model to represent the vertical profiles of O3, related chemical species (CO, NO, NO2, H2O2, CH2O, HNO3, SO2, PAN, isoprene, toluene), and meteorological parameters (liquid water content, water vapor, temperature, wind speed and direction and pressure) is assessed through comparisons with the observational data from the aircraft (NOAA P-3 and NASA DC-8) flights and Lidar during the 2004 International Consortium for Atmospheric Research on Transport and Transformation (ICARTT) field experiments. The spatial and temporal performance of the model for surface O3 over the eastern U.S during this period is examined through comparison with observations from the U.S. EPA Air Quality System (AQS) network. On the basis of the intensive datasets obtained at the four Atmospheric Investigation, Regional Modeling, Analysis, and Prediction (AIRMAP) and Harvard Forest surface sites, a variety of diagnostic tests were used to examine the ability of the model to simulate the processes governing the distributions of tropospheric O3.