Using Environmental Information to Improve Air Quality

Meteorology influences the formation and transport of regional air pollutants. Certain meteorological features coincide with episodes of high air pollutant concentrations. However, the complex nature of the formation of pollutants such as ozone makes elucidating a simple description of relationship difficult.

The review of previous efforts to quantify the relationship between meteorology and ozone concentrations will lead to a discussion of the use of meteorological data in advanced air quality models. Several methods for generating meteorological data will be compared. The use of interpolated observations requires large networks of stations to measure both surface and upper-level meteorology. Prognostic mesoscale meteorological models significantly reduce the amount of measurements required but may not necessarily reproduce reality. Methods to synthetically generate meteorological data for air quality models show promise but require further development and verification.