# Presentation: 066989

## NOAA Air Quality Forecast Modeling Program

- <date/time>

**NOAA Air Quality Forecast Modeling Program**

- Ken Schere
- NOAA-Air Resources Laboratory
- U.S. EPA-Atmospheric Modeling Division
- Research Triangle Park, NC
- U.S. EPA/AWMA 2003 National Air Quality Conference
- San Antonio, TX
- February 4, 2003

## OVERVIEW

- <date/time>

- Motivation
- To provide accurate and timely air quality forecast guidance Nationwide to help protect lives and property
- Public interest / Congressional interest
- 2002 Senate Energy Bill
- “... NOAA shall ... establish a program to provide operational air quality forecasts and warnings for specific regions of the United States ...”
- Collaboration

**NOAA**
-   >  Develop and evaluate tools for
-       national/state/local air quality
-       forecasting
-   >  Provide operational air quality
-       models and forecast pollutant
-       concentration fields with
-       national coverage

**EPA**
-   >  Maintain current national emissions
-       inventory
-   >  Maintain national air quality
-       monitoring databases
-   >  Disseminate/interpret national air
-       quality forecast information
-       -  AQI and links to public health

**STATES / LOCALS**
-   >  Provide state/local emissions data
-   >  Provide state/local air quality
-       monitoring data
-   >  Provide local AQI forecasts/warnings

**PUBLIC and COMMERCIAL SECTORS**

- <date/time>

- Tentative Operational Timetable
- Initial Operational Capability
- 1-day ozone forecasts for the Northeast U.S. –  Fall 2004
- 1-day ozone forecasts Nationwide – within 5 yrs
- 1-day PM2.5 forecasts for the Northeast U.S. – within 5 yrs
- Extensions to Operational Capability
- Over 10 yr period
- 2-3 day ozone forecasts Nationwide
- 2-3 day PM2.5 forecasts Nationwide
- Associated forecast metrics (e.g., visibility)
- Development and extension of operational performance goals

## Research Prototyping Activities

- <date/time>

- 2001, 2002 NOAA Early Start and Air Quality Pilot Studies
- Daily numerical model forecasts for ozone made during summer season with existing air quality models
- Northeast/East U.S. domains
- MCNC MAQSIP-RT
- NOAA/ARL Hysplit-O3
- NOAA/FSL MM5-Chem

## July 23, 2002

## Slide 7

## July 22, 2002

## Max 8-hr Ozone

|  | Summary Statistics |  | Discrete Evaluation |  | Categorical Evaluation |  |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|  | MAQSIP | AIRS | MAQSIP =  20.1  + 0.66(AIRS) |  | Ozone 85 ppb |  |
| Mean | 50.2 | 45.6 | R      | 0.62 |  |  |
| SD | 18.9 | 17.8 | BIASES |  |  |  |
| CV | 37.7 | 39.0 | MB | 4.6 |  |  |
| Max | 135.5 | 133.5 | MNB | 22.1% | A | 95.3% |
| 95th | 84.7 | 77.4 | MFB | 9.7% | B | 1.89 |
| 75th | 62.4 | 56.4 | NMB | 10.2% |  |  |
| 50th | 46.7 | 43.1 | ERRORS |  | FAR | 71.2% |
| 25th | 36.0 | 32.7 | NME | 27.9% | CSI | 23.2% |
| 5th | 25.1 | 21.2 | RMSE | 16.7 |  |  |
| Min | 0 | 1 | MAGE | 12.7 | POD | 54.6% |
| n | 13,032 | 13,032 | MNGE | 37.3% | SS | - |

**Max 8-hr Ozone**

## Building an Operational Capability

- <date/time>

- NOAA/NCEP Mesoscale Models
- Eta model
- Run 4X per day – Fully Operational
- 12-km grid cells – Continental domain
- Non-hydrostatic Mesoscale Model (NMM)
- Run 1X per day per regional domain– operational, but may not run every day
- 8-km grid cells – Regional domains
- EPA Mesoscale Air Quality Model
- CMAQ model
- Nested domains (2-36 km grid cells)

## Current CMAQ Modeling System

- Air  Quality Model

- MM5 – Meteorological Model

- SMOKE - Emissions Model

- Met-Chem Interface Processor

- CMAQ Forecast System

- CMAQ AQ Model-
- I/O, Emissions, Data Prep
- CMAQ AQ Model-
- Chemical-Transport Computations

- NCEP Mesoscale Meteorological Model
- (Eta, NMM)

- <date/time>

- Challenges in linking Eta and CMAQ models
- Different horizontal coordinate systems and map projections
- Different vertical coordinate systems
- Maintaining mass consistency
- Efficiency and accuracy of forecast system
- Efficiency
- Restructured CMAQ code
- Parallel computing architecture
- Accuracy
- Operational target – to improve on a persistence forecast
- IC/BC/Data Assimilation

## B

**B**

**C**

**E**

- dx

- dx

**u,v**

**h**

*j+1*

*j*

*j-1*

*i-1*

*i*

*i+1*

- dx

*j+1*

*j*

*j-1*

*i-1*

*i*

*i+1*

**h**

**u**

**v**

**u,v**

**h**

*i*

*j*

*j+1/2*

*j-1/2*

*i-1/2*

*i+1/2*

- Used by: CMAQ, RAMS

- Used by: MM5

- Used by: Eta, NMM

- <date/time>

- Schedule
- June 2003 – Begin initial system tests at NOAA/NCEP during 2003 ozone season
- Northeast US domain
- 12km grid cells
- 1-day forecast – O3
- October 2003-May 2004 – Refine system for NCEP operations
- May 2004 – Begin operational real time test and evaluations at NOAA/NCEP
- September 2004 – Initial operational Eta-CMAQ forecast system for Northeast US

## Extending the Operational Capability

- <date/time>

- Moving to PM2.5 Forecasting
- What metrics are of interest for short-term forecasts?
- 24-h average; daily max
- Data for evaluation; initial/boundary conditions
- Observation networks are relatively new
- Total mass; speciated mass issues
- Emissions inventories and uncertainty
- Improving the science processes
- Model efficiency for forecasts

- <date/time>

- Transitioning to on-line meteorology-air quality modeling
- Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) Model
- Next-generation mesoscale meteorological model
- NCAR, NOAA, and others collaborating
- 2004-2006 operational timeframe at NOAA/NCEP
- Integrating chemistry on-line with meteorological modeling
- WRF-Chem
- Testing to start after WRF is operational

- <date/time>

- Advantages over off-line linked modeling
- Improved mass consistency
- High frequency of communication between meteorology and chemistry processes
- Potential for feedbacks from air quality simulation to meteorology (aerosol-related)
- Radiation
- Cloud microphysics
- Potential disadvantages
- Additional computational burden for single model run
- Delay in producing meteorological forecasts
- Unless separate runs are performed in parallel

## Summary

- <date/time>

- NOAA/EPA collaboration on numerical modeling system for AQ forecasts
- Initial operational capability (IOC) for 1-day O3 forecasts for Northeast U.S. to start September 2004 at NOAA/NCEP
- AQ forecast capability to be extended in stages to include:
- Nationwide coverage
- PM2.5 forecasts
- 2-3 day forecasts
- On-line met/chem modeling