An Evaluation of NAAPS during the East Coast Smoke Event in June 2023

An unprecedented number of Canadian wildfires occurred during May and June 2023 due to unusually hot and dry conditions. As a result, smoke was advected over large areas of North America, posing significant threats to visibility and air quality. The global Navy Aerosol Analysis and Prediction System (NAAPS) model produced near-real-time operational predictions of the transport and distribution of smoke and other aerosols during this event. This study evaluates the performance of NAAPS by comparing aerosol optical depth (AOD) and vertical aerosol extinction with ground-based remote sensing observations from the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) and Micro-Pulse Lidar Network (MPLNET) at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) and London, Ontario. We analyze operational and research versions of NAAPS at the analysis time and over multiple forecast days. NAAPS captures the overall timing of aerosol loading at both sites, as indicated by peaks in AOD during this period, but the magnitude of aerosol optical depth and the vertical distribution of smoke show important differences both between NAAPS runs and between model and observations. Factors affecting these differences include smoke source data and spatial resolution.