Online coupled regional meteorology chemistry models in Europe: current status and prospects

Abstract

Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union. A. Baklanov et al.: Online coupled regional meteorology chemistry models in EuropeAbstract. Online coupled mesoscale meteorology atmospheric chemistry models have undergone a rapid evolution in recent years. Although mainly developed by the air quality modelling community, these models are also of interest for numerical weather prediction and regional climate modelling as they can consider not only the effects of meteorology on air quality, but also the potentially important effects of atmospheric composition on weather. Two ways of online coupling can be distinguished: online integrated and online access coupling. Online integrated models simulate meteorology and chemistry over the same grid in one model using one main time step for integration. Online access models use independent meteorology and chemistry modules that might even have different grids, but exchange meteorology and chemistry data on a regular and frequent basis. This article offers a comprehensive review of the current research status of online coupled meteorology and atmospheric chemistry modelling within Europe. Eighteen regional online coupled models developed or being used in Europe are described and compared. Topics discussed include a survey of processes relevant to the interactions between atmospheric physics, dynamics and composition; a brief overview of existing online mesoscale models and European model developments; an analysis on how feedback processes are treated in these models; numerical issues associated with coupled models; and several case studies and model performance evaluation methods. Finally, this article highlights selected scientific issues and emerging challenges that require proper consideration to improve the reliability and usability of these models for the three scientific communities: air quality, numerical meteorology modelling (including weather prediction) and climate modelling. This review will be of particular interest to model developers and users in all three fields as it presents a synthesis of scientific progress and provides recommendations for future research directions and priorities in the development, application and evaluation of online coupled models.

Application of WRF-Chem to forecasting PM<SUB align="right">10 concentration over Poland

“…The online integration of numerical weather prediction with atmospheric chemistry, transformation and transport allows all meteorological three-dimensional fields to be used at each time step (Kukkonen et al, 2012), varying from seconds to a few minutes. This reduces inconsistencies in processes that relate to aerosols, chemistry and meteorology (Baklanov et al, 2014). It also enables feedback effects from air pollution (e.g., those due to aerosol) on meteorological processes (Kukkonen et al, 2012;Forkel et al, 2012).…”

Sensitivity of feedback effects in CBMZ/MOSAIC chemical mechanism

“…These effects have been observed in the past (Kaufman and Fraser, 1997;Rosenfeld and Woodley,1999). New studies have been developed to study the multiple interactions between meteorology and chemistry in the atmosphere, for example aerosol-cloudradiation feedback effects (Zhang, 2008;Zhang et al, 2010;Forkel et al, 2012) and interactions between temperature, gas-phase chemistry and aerosols (Baklanov et al, 2014) We can also find opposite effects of the aerosols on the meteorological variables, for example the precipitation. Aerosols can decrease solar radiation on surface, so less heat is available for water evaporation and a reduction of precipitation is observed.…”

“…The current simulations are part of the second phase of the AQMEII (Air Quality Model Evaluation International Initiative; http://aqmeii.jrc.ec.europa.eu/) model inter-comparison exercise (Im et al, 2014a(Im et al, , 2014b and complement further five WRF-Chem simulations for Europe within this exercise, where a modal aerosol description was applied (Forkel et al, 2014;Baro et al, 2014). According to the common simulation strategy for AQMEII phase 2, the whole year 2010 was simulated as a sequence of 2-day time slices.…”

“…Realistic simulation of the feedback effects requires the use of integrated meteorology-chemistry on-line models that include detailed treatment of aerosol life cycle and aerosol impacts on radiation (direct effects) and clouds (indirect effects) (Baklanov et al, 2014;Baklanov, 2011, Bangert et al, 2012;Yang et al, 2011). Historically, the study of these effects has been done separately in modeling approaches.…”

Aerosol-Radiation Feedback and PM10 Air Concentrations Over Poland

“…It is well accepted that weather has a profound impact on air quality as well as that atmospheric composition can influence both weather and climate. Coupling of atmospheric dynamics, pollutant transport, chemical reactions and atmospheric composition will remain one of the most challenging tasks over the next decades as they are strongly integrated processes (JACOBSON 2002;ZHANG 2008;BAKLANOV et al 2014).…”