A Major Challenge in Meteorological Model Evaluation for Air-Quality Applications

A few case studies will be presented to illustrate a major challenge that we have faced over the past few years in the projects of meteorological model evaluation at NOAA/ Environmental Technology Laboratory. This challenge arises from the fact that although meteorological observations from past field experiments for air-quality applications are sufficient to reveal the quantitative errors in the model forecasts/simulations, they are not adequate for the purpose of identifying the error sources in the model forecasted/simulated meteorological processes as well as in the model physics. The case studies to be presented are from the 2000 Texas Air Quality Experiment, the 2000 Central California Ozone Study and the 2003 and 2004 New England Air Quality Experiment. Feasible approaches to taking on or work around the challenge are proposed according to the experience that we have accumulated in these case studies.