7.2
Apply the Air Quality Forecasting system to the Air Pollution caused by the Wildfire in California during the summer of 2008
Hsin-mu Lin, STC, Hampton, VA, Research Triangle Park, NC; and R. Mathur, G. A. Pouliot, and D. Kang
The NOAA-EPA Air Quality Forecast (AQF) system is based on the coupling of North American Mesoscale (NAM) meteorological model (currently, WRF-NMM) and the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) atmospheric chemistry transport model, wherein CMAQ is driven by the meteorological data from the NAM. The current 2008 AQF system was introduced by employing the same vertical coordinate system of NAM, i.e. the hybrid sigma-P coordinate, in CMAQ governing equations and calculations. This updated system provides more accurate representation of the 3-D meteorological fields and reduce mass inconsistency errors in chemistry/transport calculations.
Wildfire raises not only the concern of properties damage but also for the concern of health. During the wildfire, people in the nearby and downwind regions may be suffering from the effects of forest fire smoke that contains hazard gas and particular maters (PM). Due to their uncertainty and evident effects on the air quality, wildfire also is a challenging issue for the current AQF.
In the late June of 2008, wild fire caused by the lightning in the California last for weeks and caused air pollution problem not only for the nearby regions, but also for the surrounding states. A modified system by employing the same algorithm of 2008 AQF system with improved emission from real time observations that include the factors of wild fire was applied for this study of air pollution problem caused by the California wild fire.
In this study, the algorithm of the modified fire emission will be introduced; the Ozone and PM forecast results will be compared with the surface observations as well as the detailed discussion.
Session 7, Air quality forecasting
Thursday, 15 January 2009, 8:30 AM-9:45 AM, Room 127A
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