Ponente
Descripción
We employ the regional coupled meteorology-atmospheric chemistry WRF-Chem model to perform air quality forecasts over the Eastern Mediterranean, and inter-compare with the forecast from the EU Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service – CAMS. The model forecast skill is evaluated using measurements the concentrations of atmospheric pollutants from a dense network of 9 ground stations in the island of Cyprus. The WRF-Chem model forecasts surface temperature, pressure, and wind speed accurately, with minor differences in 10m wind speed between model and observations at coastal and mountainous stations attributed to limitations in the representation of the complex topography. Dust emissions from the major dust sources in the region, sea-salt and biogenic emissions are calculated online, while a high (1 km, hourly) spatiotemporal resolution anthropogenic emission inventory is used for the island of Cyprus. Using higher resolution, and optimized chemistry mechanism and physical process parameterizations the WRF-Chem model achieves lower normalized mean bias between the predicted and observed NO2 mixing ratios at the urban sites (-7% during winter and -44% during summer) compared to CAMS (-81% during winter and -84% during summer). Furthermore, the diurnal profiles of NO2 and O3 mixing ratios at the urban sites are captured more accurately by the WRF-Chem model. The presented advances in the predictive skill of real-time air quality forecasting models can reduce health risk and population exposure to air pollutants.
