# Presentation: 911928

## Planned Improvements for the  NOAA Air Quality Forecast System

**Planned Improvements for the  NOAA Air Quality Forecast System**
**NCEP Tasks  **

**Jeff McQueen, Pius Lee, Marina Tsildulko, Geoff DiMego**
** ****Bert Katz, Geoff Manikin and Sarah Lu**
********NOAA/NCEP***
***Environmental Modeling Center***

## Planned Improvements

**WRF Transition**
**CMAQ Improvements for Ozone and PM**
**AQF system retrospective testing**
**Real-time Verification**
**AQF Visualization and Focus Group Support**
**Operational Implementation**

## Forecast Domains (2005)

- 166

- 142

- 268 grid cells

- 259
- grid
- cells

- Northeast
- Domain

- East “3x” Domain

**Forecast Domains (2005)**

- CONUS “5x” Domain
- Eta-CMAQ
- WRF-CMAQ

**Notes:**
For the Summer of 2005, 3 forecast domains were run...all forecasts were run to 48 hours at least once/day at 12 z.

## Air Quality Forecasting Current Operational Domain Configuration

_***Eastern US***_*** :  48 hour forecasts of ozone (O******3******) : 06 and 12 UTC runs***
***3x expanded domain****** (East of Rockies, 268x259x22) run in parallel***
***Same Configuration as NE US Run except:***
***Convective Cloud Mixing from cloud top = 0***
***7/26/05: GFS ozone limited to top BC***
***Additional processors (~65) used ***
**on Production machine**
** ****12 z Available by 16:10 UTC**
**Made Operational On August 31, 2005 **
**	****	**

## Analysis of 3X Production Resources

|  | Production |  |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Job | Nodes/Tasks | Runtime |
| aqm_extract_gfs | 1/8 | 16 mins |
| aqm_assim_gfs | 1/1 | 13 |
| aqm_nam_prep (runs w/ NAM) | 1/1 | 52 |
| aqm_premaq | 1/1 | 20 |
| aqm_forecast | 9/64 | 35 |
| aqm_post | 1/1 | 5 |

## Current Air Quality Forecasting Research Aerosol  Domain Configuration

***Eastern US****** :  24 hour forecasts of O******3  ******& Aerosols: 12 UTC run only***
***Same system as operational except***
***3x expanded domain****** (East of Rockies) run ***
***24 hr cycling***
***33 processors on Development Machine (less (less reliability, 8x5)***
**Available by 21 UTC **
**	****	**

## CONUS Run Changes

_**July 26, 2005**_
- ACM  approach to parameterize deep convection and  photolysis
- attenuation from NAM clear sky radiation predictions_** **_
_**July 16, 2005**_
- CONUS Run  w/S3 convection modified to use static lateral boundary conditions
_**July 09, 2005**_CONUS Run modified to replace ACM convective mixing scheme with Standard CMAQ mixing scheme except with downward convective mixing turned off
_**June 17, 2005**_Use of GFS Ozone at lateral boundaries only at model top (100 mb, level 22)
_**June 1, 2005: CONUS Runs begins**_
- CONUS Emissions, with Special California Inventories
- Testing the _[Asymmetric Convective Model (ACM)](http://www.epa.gov/asmdnerl/CMAQ/ch07.pdf)_ in CMAQ for pollutant mixing in deep convection _[(S4 configuration)](file:///../CMAQ-EMCbranch051905.ppt)_
- Use of GFS Ozone at lateral boundaries above 6 km
- Use of NAM clear-sky radiation to drive CMAQ photolysis rates
- Maximum cloud fraction is recomputed to be the global maximum cloud fraction
- 24 hour cycling

## NCEP AQ Runs

| Run | Nov. 05 | March | May | July | Sept. 06 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Oper | East U.S (3X) |  | WRF-CONUS
 (loosely cpld) |  | CONUS + AK (impr) |
| Exper | CONUS | WRF CONUS +AK
(Inc. lvls, impr. conv. mixing,  impr. lbcs) |  |  |  |
| Devel | EAST U.S. PM | WRF CONUS PM +Fire 
 |  |  |  |
| Resrch | CONUS PM+ fire |  |  | WRF-Chem CONUS |  |

**Notes:**
NODES: 
WRF-CONUS: 5X, 8 nodes, 60 minutes
WRF-CONUS+PM: 10x, 8 nodes, 120 minutes
AK: 2.5x, 3 nodes, 30 minutes

## NCEP AQ Resources

| Run | Today | Sept. 06 |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Operational: 06, 12Z
18, 00Z
 | 8 n/35 min (EAST)
8 n/ 3 min (Cycling) | 16 nodes/ 60 min (CON+PM)
8 nodes/ 38 mins (AK) |
| Experimental: 06, 12Z
18, 00Z | 8 n/60 mins (CONUS)
8 n/ 5 mins (Cycling) | N/A |
| Developmental: 12Z
00Z | N/A | 8 nodes/ 120 min (CON+PM)
8 nodes/80mins (AK+PM)
 |
| Research: 12Z | 8 nodes/60 mins
(CON-PM+Fire) | WRF-Chem retrospectives |
| Max Resources: 
PROD
DEV | 
16 n /35 mins
8 n/60 mins | 
16 n/ 60 mins
8 n/ 120 mins |

## Operational Physics Coupling

| Current
Capability | Met Model (Eta, WRF/NMM) | AQ Model (CMAQ) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Core/Dynamics | Rotated Arakawa E grid | Arakawa C Grid |
| Clouds | Full Ferrier Cloud Microphysics | Eta cloud water for aqueous chemistry |
| Convective mixing | Betts-Miller Janjic | Entrainment from top turned off |
| Radiation | GFS* | CMAQ J Tables |
| PBL | Mellor-Yamada TKE | Eta PBL hgt for Pleim-Xiu 1st order K |
| Land Surface | NOAH common | Eta canopy conductance terms for Pleim-Xiu LSM |

## Developmental Run Coupling

| Run | NAM-CMAQ (Conus)  | WRF-CMAQ (Planned) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Domain | Interp to CMAQ C grid | Common Rotated E grid |
| Vertical Coordinate | Interpolate to CMAQ σ | Common WRF/NMM σ-P |
| Photolysis | Surface NAM Radiative Scaling | 3-D Radiative fluxes ?? |
| PBL | NAM PBL height into P-X | NAM TKE/Kh to drive mixing ?? |
| Clouds  Aqueous
              Mixing | NAM cloud water
Axisymetric Convective Model (ACM) mixing extended for conv | NAM cloud water,graupel & ice 
GFS-RAS mixing into CMAQ |
| LBCs | GFS at model top
Static below | GFS in strat,  static below,
improved vertical resolution
 |

## Air Quality ForecastingUser Access

_***East Domain ***_***:***
**Public****: **_**NDGD and TOC ftp server**_
*** ******Surface ozone predictions***
**State Forecasters****: **_**HPC web site**_
*** ******Sfc O3 & met plots ***
***Daily (2pm) conference calls***
***HPC forecasters trained***
_***Developmental Domain (CONUS):***_*** ***
**Focus group****: **_**EMC & PSU web site**_
***Expanded met plots (pbl hgt, sw rad, ventilation index....)***
***Sfc & upper level O3 and precurser plots (NOx, NOy,CO,SO2)***
_***Research (Aerosols)***_
**Sfc PM, AOT**

## NCEP Graphical Products

- Predicted Sfc Ozone
- (1, 8h, max)

- Eta Ventilation Index

- Eta PBL hgt

## RETROSPECTIVE TESTINGRuns: P. Lee, M. TsidulkoAnalysis: R. Mathur, D. Kang, J. Pleim,...

- 2005 Base**: 2005 Operational run**
- S0**: Reflects changes due to NAM-X (WRF)**
- S1**: S0 + photolysis attenuation based on Eta**
**          ****radiation fields**
**S2**
- S3**: S0 + Mixing from above clouds turned-off**
**S4:**
- S5**: S1+S3**

## Analysis Time Periods

- Time Periods
***12Z July 16, 2004 – 12Z July 25, 2004***
***12Z August 4, 2004 – 12Z August 13, 2004***
***12Z August 8, 2002 – 12Z August 20, 2002***

## July Case

## July 16-23 2004

- Aug 4-11 2004

**Notes:**
Cooler temps with NAM-X

## July 16-23, 2004

- Aug 4-11

**Notes:**
NAM-X Coupling for 2004.  Higher Latent Heat fluxes with new 1 km Land use scheme.

## NAM VerificationJune 2005

- 2 m Temperature
- EAST U.S.

- 2 m Temperature
- West U.S.

**Notes:**
UPDATE FOR JUNE 2005

## FVS O3 1h Aver. Aug 20051x  -  3x -  5x over 3x domain 

**RMSE by Forecast Hour**

**BIAS**

**Notes:**
UPDATE FOR 2005 BIAS, RMSE
ADD JULY 12 CASE 5x plots. Weather, satellite, ozone plots, temp predi

## Summer 2005 Performance  1x  -  3x over NE domain - 3x Full domain

**36 h Forecast Bias**

**Summer 2005 Performance  ****1x  - **** ****3x over NE domain - ****3x Full domain**

**Notes:**
Slightly larger errors in expanded domain
Larger errors in sept.  More cloudinesss ?

## Objective Verification  Overall Performance - Summer 2005

**FAR**

**1hr Equitable Threat Scores**

**Notes:**
Summer 2005 Performance so far:

Left plot:  
1 hr avg correlations averaged by forecast hour comparing experimental (black dashed0 and  operational (red) performance over the overlapping areas.  Correlations improved at all forecast hours indicating improved timing of ozone plume transport with the experimental set up.

Right Plot
Equitable Threat Scores of Daily Max 8 hour exceedences for July. Skills are improved for most events.  ETS accounts for both POD and FAR performance in a combined sense.  The Score is increased as the POD is maximized and FAR is minimized at paired obs-model sites.
ETS=(H-CH)/(F+O-H-CH), where CH=F*O/T 
T: Total number of grid points to be verifiedF: Number of forecast points above a thresholdO: Number of observed points above a thresholdH: Number of correctly forecasted points ('hits') 

## Summer 2005 PerformanceSub-Region Bias

- NE, SE Regions
- 1X vs 3X

- 3X All Regions

- 1X

- 3X

- SE

- NE

- LMV

**Notes:**
UPDATE FOR 2005 BIAS, RMSE
ADD JULY 12 CASE 5x plots. Weather, satellite, ozone plots, temp predi

## Objective Verification  July 26, 2005 Case

**Operational Run : NE US **
**8 hr daily max**

**Experimental Run: Eastern 2/3 US**
**8 hr daily max**

**Notes:**
8 hr daily max observation (colored circles) vs CMAQ predictions (color filled).
Light orange indicates areas of 8 h exceeedences >85 ppb. 
Both configurations over predict exceedences on the Eastern U.S. I95 Corridor and results are generally similar except that the 3x extends the predicted area of exceedences further North in Conneticut and Southern Mass where exceedences were observed.

## CONUS Domain Performance  July 12, 2005 Case

**8h daily max obs vs predicted**

**Notes:**
8 hr daily max observation (colored circles) vs CMAQ predictions (color filled).
Light orange indicates areas of 8 h exceeedences >85 ppb. 
Both configurations over predict exceedences on the Eastern U.S. I95 Corridor and results are generally similar except that the 3x extends the predicted area of exceedences further North in Conneticut and Southern Mass where exceedences were observed.

## CONUS Domain Performance  July 12, 2005 Case

- Hurricane Dennis

**Notes:**
8 hr daily max observation (colored circles) vs CMAQ predictions (color filled).
Light orange indicates areas of 8 h exceeedences >85 ppb. 
Both configurations over predict exceedences on the Eastern U.S. I95 Corridor and results are generally similar except that the 3x extends the predicted area of exceedences further North in Conneticut and Southern Mass where exceedences were observed.

## Summary

***Retrospective and real-time results show improvements****** ***
**Mean daytime bias reduced from ~17 to 5 ppb**
**Mean daytime rmse reduced from  22.8 to 14.5 ppb**
**However, still general overprediction in day, poorer performance at night,**
**Temporary Fix of over-mixing from downward entrainment of strat(gfs) ozone**
***FY05 Focus***
**Improved dynamics/physics coupling w/ NAM-CMAQ**
**Improve  boundary conditions from GFS chemistry**
**Improve verification**
***FY06 ***
**Complete WRF-CMAQ tight Coupling for CONUS**
**Test North American Run (CONUS, Canada, Alaska, Hawaii)**
**Continue Aerosol Run evaluation for Eastern U.S.**

## FY06 Developmental TestingWRF-CMAQ 

**WRF/NMM tests**
***Test common vertical Sigma coordinate ***
***Test common horizontal rotated E grid coordinate***
**Improved Radiation Coupling for Photolysis**
***Sfc and 3d radiative fluxes***
**Improved Cloud Coupling for cloud mixing & aqueous chemistry**
**Improved PBL coupling for mixing**
**Improved Emissions**
**Improved LBCs**
***Improved vertical resolution near tropopause***
***Raised CMAQ model top***
**Full bundle tests**

## BACKUPS

## Operational Run Changes

-  _**July 27, 2005**_ GFS ozone for the CMAQ Lateral Boundary Condition is now limited to only the CMAQ model top LBC (100 mb, Level 22).
-  _**June 09, 2005**_ A bug was corrected in the interpolation  of ozone from the new GFS to the CMAQ grid.
_**May 31, 2005: GFS Upgrade**_
- The NCEP _[Global Forecast System (GFS)](http://meted.ucar.edu/nwp/pcu2/gfsannounce20050531.htm)_ was upgraded to T382 (~35 km).In addition, the following implementations were changed:         A new land/sea ice physics
- Reduced vertical diffusion
- Enhanced mountain blocking
- assimilation of AIRS satellite data
- GFS ozone is used to prescribe the CMAQ lateral Boundary Conditions *above 6 km*.
_**May 3, 2005 **__[NAM U](http://meted.ucar.edu/nwp/pcu2/NAMMay2005.htm)__**pgrade**_
- _[Upgraded CMAQ](file:///../CMAQ-EMCbranch051905.ppt)_ V4.4 w/ 6 h cycling
- Downward conv. Cloud mixing turned off.
- 1km Land use used in NAM-X

## NCEP AQ Runs 2005

| Run | Today | June | July | August |  | Sept   Oct |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Operational | NE U.S |  |                                  EAST U.S. |  |  |  |
| Experimental | East U.S. |  |  |  |                  CONUS |  |
| Developmental (EMC) |  | CONUS (Eta) |  |  |                  CONUS 
                  (WRF) |  |
| Research (EMC) | PM East US |  |  |  |                    PM 
                East US 
                 (WRF) |  |
|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |

## Analysis of Data Volumes

**IBM CCS Disk**
***Additional 54 Gig per Day***
***Total Additional of 420 Gig on Disk (5 Days)***
***IBM CCS HPSS***
***Additional 42 Gig per Day***
**NTC Dataflow**
***NE Run – Total of 125 MB per Day Currently Sent***
***Eastern US – Total of 80 MB Per Day Currently Sent***
***NE Run Data Taken Off Line When Eastern US Run Implemented into Production***

## Data Assimilation/Global System Tasks

**CMAQ data assimilation:**
***Plan for surface ozone assimilation***
***Correlate sfc ozone w/ precursers (Nox VOCs)***
**GFS: Improved chemistry for regional LBCs**
_***Ozone***_***:***
**Include tropospheric product/loss rate terms**
**Test reduced ozone chemistry (U.Wisc-RAQMS)**
**Begin testing assimilation of AURA/OMI**
**CMAQ LBC impact studies**
_***Aerosols:***_
**Include NASA-GOCART reduced biomass burning/dust**
** ****and emission processes**
**Begin testing assimilation of MODIS & AURA/TESS**
**CMAQ LBC impact studies**

## Potential short-term collaboration projects

**Evaluation of NCEP WRF-CMAQ ozone & aerosol simulations**
***Experimental & rural obs networks (eg: ETOS, AERONET, REALM lidar network)***
***GOES/MODIS satellite evaluation***
**Assimilation of AIRNOW ozone data into CMAQ initial conditions**
**Improved cloud mixing, aqueos chemistry PBL coupling with WRF-CMAQ**
**Testing of WRF-Chem on-line system to offline WRF-CMAQ forecasts**

## Real-Time VerificationEMC FVS time-series binned by FHR

- RMSE

- Bias

## Retrospective TestsEta-CMAQ (East U.S)

**Upgraded Eta Met. Driver tests (S0)**
***1 km NOAH Landuse, soils ***
***Improved cloud-radiation effects***
***2 mb top, improved precip assimilation***
**Improved Radiation Coupling for Photolysis (S2)**
***Sfc radiation flux scaling***
**Improved Cloud Coupling for cloud mixing *****and aqueous chemistry? ***
***Use graupal, ice fields for aqueous***
***Use convective cloud base/top for mixing***
**Improved PBL coupling for mixing**
***Use 3-D TKE Kh fields***
**Improved Emissions**
**Improved LBCs**
**Full bundle tests**
**Begin Real-time Parallels**

## Operational Requirements

**Driven by NCEP Operational Meteorological Model (Eta-12 and WRF/NMM)**
**I/O Formats:**
*** ******Only machine binary, GRIB and BUFR, disk space limitations***
**Time Requirement:**
***12 Z 48 hour forecast available by 17:25 Z (1:25 pm EDT)***
***06 Z 48 hour forecast available by 13:00 Z ( 9 am EDT)***
***65 IBM Power 4 procs available***
***12 Z start after Eta is complete (14:30 Z)***
**Robustness:**
***Thoroughly tested & evaluated with retrospective and real-time experimental runs***
***Available to NWS Gateway, NDGD: 99% reliability, 24x7 NCEP support***
***Accuracy: 90% exceedence hit rate***

##  Summer 05 Planned NCEP Runs

| Run | To EMC | To NCO | Real-time runs |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Operational
(3x East U.S.) | 2/1/05 | 3/15/05 | 5/1/05 |
| Experimental
(CONUS U.S.) | 3/15/05 | 5/1/05 | 6/1/05
 |
| Developmental
(CONUS-WRF) | 6/1/05
If WRF/NMM  is running realtime | 7/15/05 | 9/15/05 |
| Research 
(Aerosols) | Real-time: Winter 05
Retrospect: Summer 05 |  |  |
| Fire Smoke (Hysplit-I)
Bluesky-hysplit-II | 
12/31/04
3/1/05 | 
2/1/05
5/15/05 | 
3/1/05
7/1/05 |

## Air Quality Forecasting2004  Verification (1x and 3x)

_***NCEP EMC FVS System ***_***:***
**1 and 8 hour O3 averages**
**RMSE, Bias, STD, correlation coefficients Time series by fhr and day, subregion**
*** ******using EPA AIRNOW O3 network began 7/12/04***
**FHO contingency exceedence stats (POD, FAR, threat scores)**
***Began 8/1/04***
_***NWS/MDL***_
** ****Daily Spatial obs vs predicted exceedence maps **
**Contingency exceedence stats since June 1**
_***NOAA/OAR/EPA***_
**Retrospective evaluations (8/12-19, 2003)**
**RT:Similar Stats except stations averaged over CMAQ grid points**
_***ICARRT web page***_***: sfc & UL ozone timeseries vs observations***

## Implementation Tasks

**Transfer parallel experimental  system to Operations:**
***Complete agreed upon Charter w/ NCO***
***Provide additional Eta/WRF fields from Postprocessors***
**** Transfer upgraded CMAQ to EMC ***
***Add internal documentation, refine scripts, adjust IO & dataset names***
***Support GRIB2 hrly gridded outputs***
***Perform 2002/2004 retrospective tests w/ upgraded Eta or WRF***
***Perform real-time parallels w/ updated emissions files***
***System evaluation against AIRNOW w NCEP FVS***
***Prepare estimates of cpu/disk resources for NCO***
***Prepare Job Implementation Form (JIFs) requests to NCO:***
***Send out Change Notices, update web page change logs***
**Maintain/improve operational graphics, verification plot web pages**
***May require additional output to GRIB files***

## ICARRT Evaluation

## NE DOMAIN Retros. Evaluation1 Hr Avg ozone Errors (8/12-19, 2003)

- RMSE

- Mean Bias

## Real-Time VerificationNWS MDL Evaluation Predicted vs Obs Exceedence

**Notes:**
Blue is forecast but not observed....so our false alarm rates are very high...
Except over texas....where we do not predict the urban exceedences.
A real challenge going nationally

## Max 8-hr O3 Mean Bias Spatial Distribution: July 21, 2004

- 2004 Base

- S0

- S1                                         S3                                          S5

**Max 8-hr O****3**** Mean Bias Spatial Distribution: July 21, 2004**

## Max. 8-Hr. O3

**RS                                            S0**

**S0-RS**

**Max. 8-Hr. O****3**
**August 8, 2004**

**Slight tendency to under-predict**

**O3 increased regionally,**
**Over-predict at low range**

**Notes:**
Large improvement from 2004. NAM changes actually helped...but higher values in south
Near boundaries.