Lessons learned by modelers in the field during ASIA-AQ (Invited Presentation)

The Airborne and Satellite Investigation of Asian Air Quality (ASIA-AQ) field campaign conducted in early 2024 is an international cooperative field study designed to address local air quality challenges in the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand and South Korea. A large group of forecasters for meteorology and air quality provided support for flight planning and real-time analysis of the aircraft, surface monitors and satellite observations. While the US-based forecasters funded to participate in the campaign have extensive experience studying air quality in Asia, we encountered a number of surprises and greatly benefited from the local knowledge provided by scientists in each of the regions. Our NSF NCAR modeling group together with other ASIA-AQ modeling groups support the Airborne and Satellite Investigation of Asian Air Quality (ASIA-AQ) field campaign by providing multi-scale chemistry model forecasts and analyses to support flight planning, and post-campaign interpretation of observations. As an early career scientist in this forecast group, I had an opportunity to contribute to the chemical forecast part. In this presentation I will share our experiences and lessons learned from (1) setting up models and preparing forecasts for the field campaign, (2) on-site forecast during the field campaign, and (3) post-campaign analyses and model-observation comparisons.