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A PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF THE 2004 RELEASE OF MODELS-3 CMAQ
Citation:
EDER, B. K. AND S. YU. A PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF THE 2004 RELEASE OF MODELS-3 CMAQ. ATMOSPHERIC ENVIRONMENT. Elsevier Science Ltd, New York, NY, 40(26):4811-4824, (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:
This performance evaluation compares a full annual simulation (2001) of CMAQ (Version4.4) covering the contiguous United States against monitoring data from four nationwide networks. This effort, which represents one of the most spatially and temporally comprehensive performance evaluations of the model, reveals that CMAQ varies considerably in its ability to simulate ambient air concentrations of critical gas and particulate matter species.