Influence of lateral and top boundary conditions on regional air quality prediction: A multiscale study coupling regional and global chemical transport models

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Read Full Article (file size: 4580702 bytes) Cited by JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 112, D10S18, doi:10.1029/2006JD007515, 2007 Influence of lateral and top boundary conditions on regional air quality prediction: A multiscale study coupling regional and global chemical transport models Youhua Tang Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, USA Gregory R. Carmichael Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, USA Narisara Thongboonchoo Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, USA Tianfeng Chai Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, USA Larry W. Horowitz Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, NOAA, Princeton, New Jersey, USA Robert B. Pierce NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia, USA Jassim A. Al-Saadi NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia, USA Gabriele Pfister National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, USA Jeffrey M. Vukovich Carolina Environmental Program, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA Melody A. Avery NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia, USA Glen W. Sachse NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia, USA Thomas B. Ryerson Chemical Sciences Division, Earth System Research Laboratory, NOAA, Boulder, Colorado, USA John S. Holloway Chemical Sciences Division, Earth System Research Laboratory, NOAA, Boulder, Colorado, USA Elliot L. Atlas Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA Frank M. Flocke National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, USA Rodney J. Weber School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA L. Gregory Huey School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA Jack E. Dibb Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space, University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire, USA David G. Streets Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois, USA William H. Brune Department of Meteorology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA Abstract The sensitivity of regional air quality model to various lateral and top boundary conditions is studied at 2 scales: a 60 km domain covering the whole USA and a 12 km domain over northeastern USA. Three global models (MOZART-NCAR, MOZART-GFDL and RAQMS) are used to drive the STEM-2K3 regional model with time-varied lateral and top boundary conditions (BCs). The regional simulations with different global BCs are examined using ICARTT aircraft measurements performed in the summer of 2004, and the simulations are shown to be sensitive to the boundary conditions from the global models, especially for relatively long-lived species, like CO and O₃. Differences in the mean CO concentrations from three different global-model boundary conditions are as large as 40 ppbv, and the effects of the BCs on CO are shown to be important throughout the troposphere, even near surface. Top boundary conditions show strong effect on O₃ predictions above 4 km. Over certain model grids, the model's sensitivity to BCs is found to depend not only on the distance from the domain's top and lateral boundaries, downwind/upwind situation, but also on regional emissions and species properties. The near-surface prediction over polluted area is usually not as sensitive to the variation of BCs, but to the magnitude of their background concentrations. We also test the sensitivity of model to temporal and spatial variations of the BCs by comparing the simulations with time-varied BCs to the corresponding simulations with time-mean and profile BCs. Removing the time variation of BCs leads to a significant bias on the variation prediction and sometime causes the bias in predicted mean values. The effect of model resolution on the BC sensitivity is also studied. Received 16 May 2006; accepted 8 January 2007; published 25 April 2007. Keywords: chemical transport model; lateral boundary condition; ICARTT. Index Terms: 0345 Atmospheric Composition and Structure: Pollution: urban and regional (0305, 0478, 4251); 0368 Atmospheric Composition and Structure: Troposphere: constituent transport and chemistry; 3355 Atmospheric Processes: Regional modeling. Read Full Article (file size: 4580702 bytes) Cited by Citation: Tang, Y., et al. (2007), Influence of lateral and top boundary conditions on regional air quality prediction: A multiscale study coupling regional and global chemical transport models, J. Geophys. Res., 112, D10S18, doi:10.1029/2006JD007515. Copyright 2007 by the American Geophysical Union.

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