Developing the Capability to Provide Surface Aerosol and Trace Gas Concentrations at Spatial Scales between 100 m and 2 km Needed to Support Human and Ecosystem Health Studies (Invited Presentation)

We are developing the capability to provide surface aerosol and trace gas concentration estimates at spatial scales (between 100 m and 2 km) needed to support human and ecosystem health studies. This includes: (1) Exercising a global-scale GEOS-Chem based data assimilation framework for joint assimilation of observed concentrations of trace gases and selected aerosol species, including O3, CO and CO2 from current satellite observations MLS, TES, AIRS+OMI, and OCO2. This global low-resolution (>100 km) speciated gas and aerosol concentrations from GEOS-Chem is used to provide lateral boundary conditions required for running the regional WRF-Chem. (2) Developing a streamlined interface between the GEOS-Chem and the WRF-Chem for generating a comprehensive set of the gas species and aerosol species, for WRF-Chem with respect to spatial coverage and resolution, temporal coverage and resolution, and the file format. (3) Integrating WRF-Chem model particulate matter estimates with surface monitor and satellite data to generate spatially and temporally gap-filled constituent maps at 2 km scales with quantified uncertainties. (4) For urban areas, integrating a Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) model with the WRF-Chem fields, capitalizing on the small-scale dynamics within the LES with downscaling techniques in order to parameterize surface-level pollution and associated uncertainty estimate on scales of 10s to 100s m, in order to provide detailed exposure maps for health impact studies. This capability can then be used for both addressing NASA science objectives and supporting Observation System Simulation Experiments (OSSE’s) needed to evaluate new mission requirements for air-quality and health studies.