Developing the Joint Effort for Data Assimilation Integration (JEDI) based Atmospheric Composition Data Assimilation with NOAA's Regional Air Quality Model (AQM)

NOAA has recently implemented the next-generation Air Quality Model (AQM) Ver.7.0. The AQM prediction system is based on an online-coupling approach within the Unified Forecast System (UFS) framework using the Finite Volume Cubed-Sphere Dynamic Core (FV3) and chemical mechanism of US EPA’s Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ). We are developing the atmospheric composition data assimilation (DA) under JEDI system which is a unified and versatile DA system for Earth system prediction, and now the JEDI DA capability has been added to the regional model workflow. We are focusing on the September 2020 time period when the wildfires were burning millions of acres over the western US, and smoke plumes from the fires crossed the US and reached the Atlantic Ocean. In this presentation, we will discuss the preliminary results from the prototype cycling for AQM Ver. 7 with JEDI DA to improve the background error covariance, especially for the NO2 trace gas. We will also discuss the quality control procedures for the TROPOMI NO2 retrievals.