87th AMS Annual Meeting

Tuesday, 16 January 2007: 11:00 AM
Air Quality forecast using WRF/NMM-CMAQ during the TexAQS 2006
212A (Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center)
Pius C. Lee, NCEP/EMC, Camp Springs, MD; and S. A. McKeen, J. McQueen, D. Kang, M. Tsidulko, S. Lu, H. M. Lin, G. DiMego, N. Seaman, and P. M. Davidson
Poster PDF (320.7 kB)
This study reports on preliminary air quality forecast results using a developmental version of the National Weather Service's Air Quality Forecasting System with gas phase and aerosol chemistry. The system is based on the coupled National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Weather Research and Forecasting Non-hydrostatic Mesoscale Model (WRF/NMM) coupled with the EPA Community Model for Air Quality (CMAQ) run daily to provide 48 hour air quality forecasts over the Continental U.S.. Air quality forecasts will be evaluated against observations obtained during the Texas Air Quality Study (TexAQS) 2006 measurement campaign. The campaign aims to investigate the source and processes responsible for photochemical pollution and regional haze in Texas. The rather dense network of ozone and particulate observations within the study area will likely give insights on various aspects of pollutant transport and transformation pertinent to the formation and distribution of ozone and particulate species and their precursors. Forecast species concentration profiles will be compared with vertically resolvable observation data. The diurnal and short and long range transport characteristics of ozone and particulate matter smaller than 2.5 μm in diameter will be evaluated to quantify the skill of the forecast model.

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