Real-time forecasts of three ozone episodes by the Eta-CMAQ model during the 2004 New England Air Quality Study (NEAQS)

Ozone, a secondary pollutant, is created in part by pollution from anthropogenic and biogenic sources. It is necessary for local air quality agencies to accurately forecast ozone concentrations to warn the public of unhealthy air and to encourage people to voluntarily reduce emissions-producing activities. This work examined spatial and temporal performance of the Eta-CMAQ forecast model for three ozone episodes, July 1-2, July 22-23 and August 10-11, over the northeastern U.S. during the 2004 New England Air Quality Study (NEAQS) by comparison with observations from the U.S. EPA Air Quality System (AQS) network. A variety of diagnostic tests were used to examine the ability of the model to simulate the processes governing the distributions of tropospheric ozone on the basis of the intensive datasets obtained at the four Atmospheric Investigation, Regional Modeling, Analysis, and Prediction (AIRMAP) and Harvard Forest (HF) surface sites. The ability of the model to represent the vertical structure of air pollutants is assessed with the observational data from Lidar and aircraft during the 2004 NEAQS field experiments.

Disclaimer The research presented here was performed under the Memorandum of Understanding between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and under agreement number DW13921548. Although it has been reviewed by EPA and NOAA and approved for publication, it does not necessarily reflect their policies or views.