Assessment of MM5 application over the Northeastern United States for Summer 2002: Experience and Performance Evaluation

It is well known that the ability of any photochemical model to accurately reproduce the observed ozone and particular matter (PM) concentrations depends to a large extent on the accuracy of the meteorological fields used as model inputs. Studies also demonstrated the impact of meteorological uncertainties with respect to ozone control strategies as well as on the determination of ozone Relative Reduce Factor (RRF). This paper presents the experience of applying MM5 in producing five month of meteorological data in summer of 2002 to be used in CMAQ simulation for ozone and PM. The evaluation of the accuracy of the MM5 outputs includes a comparison of MM5 fields with the surface base weather observations, the wind profiler observations, and satellite base cloud data. The physical consistency of the turbulence fields derived from MM5 meteorological fields, for example PBL height and diffusivity will be examined.