# Presentation: 540470

## AIRPACT Air Quality Forecasting for PNW2001 

- Joe Vaughan, Brian Lamb, Hal Westberg,
- Brad Fritz and Lee Bamesberger, WSU
- Clint Bowman, Cristiana Figueroa-Kaminsky,
- Sally Otterson, WA Dept. of Ecology
- Rob Wilson and Jeff Arnold, EPA Region X
- Cliff Mass, Mark Albright and Dan Jaffe, UW
- Len Barrie, Rich Barchet, Jerome Fast
- and Tom Jobson, PNNL
**www.airpact.wsu.edu**

**Notes:**
Usually, if I tell someone I’m from Washington state, the first question is how I like the rain in Seattle? I always say I like it fine since my son lives there and I don’t.   However, the I-5 corridor along the western Cascades has more than just rain.  In summer and winter, there can be clear skies and very nice weather.  However, under those conditions, we can also periodically experience air quality problems in terms of elevated ozone levels during the summers and high PM levels and haze during the winter.  The area was in non-attainment for ozone a couple of years ago and may have difficulties meeting the 8 hr ozone standard in the future.  
As a result of these periodic air quality issues, there is actually quite an active effort in the form of a Northwest Modeling Consortium to develop tools for use in the the Northwest.  Initially, this took the form of supporting Cliff Mass’ group at UW to implement an operational MM5 weather forecast system.  In turn, the MM5 operation provided a basis for development of a regional air quality forecast system that we call AIRPACT.   

## AIRPACT Regional Air Quality Modeling System 

**MM5**

**CALMET**

**CALGRID**

**u, v formatted**
**for each layer **
**of CALMET**

**3D met field:**
**u, v, w, T, **
**BL variables**

**3D species field:**
**O3, VOC, NOx,**
**primary PM**

**IC/BC**
**landuse**
**terrain**

**landuse**
**terrain**** **

**IC/BC**
**emissions**
**chem mech**
**dry dep**
**p**

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## AIRPACT Air Quality Simulation System

## (continued)

## Mobile Emissions Generation w/ MM5 Temperatures

- EVAP 4-km

- REST 4-km

- RUN 4-km

- EXH 4-km

**Cell-wise Temperature Adjustment w/ Month, Day, Hour Factors, by Species Group**

- Monthly

- Temp (F)

- Daily

- Hourly

- Hourly Gridded Temps (K)

- Hourly Gridded VMT Emissions

**VMT Adjustment Factor Files**

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## http://airpact.ce.wsu.edu

## http://airpact.ce.wsu.edu

## PNW2001 AIRPACT Operations 

- Routine Operations
- Starts after the MM5 4-km run from 00Z initialization.
- Uses forecast hours 12 through 36 from MM5 run.
- 24-hour CALGRID run on  DEC/Alpha (one processor) runs in 67 min  CPU time.
- Currently finishes by ~ 3 AM PST.
- Verification using Ecology data runs a day later.
- PNW 2001
- Operated continuously during August field period.
- Automated delivery of forecast results to PNNL.
- Archived forecast results and Ecology observations from field program period

**Notes:**
In terms of how AIRPACT runs, we use the zero Z MM5 forecast and we run forecast hours from 12 to 36.  The model runs on a Dec/Alpha machine in a little over one hour for a 24 hr simulation.  The forecast for the day is finished at about 3 am PST.  

The AIRPACT system went on line last spring and runs on a daily basis.  We get occasional model failures--one or two per month--these are usually due to problems with the MM5 operations.  

We have an active effort underway to evaluate the forecast.  This includes using the Dept of Ecology real-time observations with an automated verification scheme that runs the day after the forecast.  We also collaborated with Battelle PNNL labs, EPA and Ecology in a field program we called PNW 2001.  This was run during the last two weeks of August in conjunction with the Canadian Vancouver Pacific 2001 PM field program.  In our field program, the PNNL airplane flew on 5 days, Dan Jaffe from UW flew a small instrumented plane on several days, we released ozone sondes on each flight day from one location, and WSU operated CO and Nox instruments at two surface sites and collected VOC canister samples to complement the Ecology monitoring network.  

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## What’s Next for PNW2001?	

- Detailed flight day(s) analysis
- Winds and Trajectories
- Boundary Layer behavior
- Flight path + Ground obs >> 3-d conceptual picture
- 3-d Visualization of CALGRID model output?
- Chemistry evaluation using NOy and individual VOC information
- Emissions evaluation vs observations
- Compound ratios:  observed & predicted
- CMAQ Model Simulations?
- Selected period during PNW2001
- Combination of data with Canadian PAC2001

## No secondary particulate chemistry or physics.
Particulate conserved as a tracer.
Initial Conditions are ‘Daisy-chained’ from previous model run.
Statistics being accumulated (3 months).
Verification using PM2.5 being coded.
Particulate diesel emissions from WA Dept. of Ecology for mobile and area sources.

- Particulate conserved as a tracer.
- Initial Conditions are ‘Daisy-chained’ from previous model run.
- Statistics being accumulated (3 months).
*Verification using PM2.5 being coded.*
- Particulate diesel emissions from WA Dept. of Ecology for mobile and area sources.

- AIRPACT Diesel Particulate Modeling

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## Acknowledgments

- Funding through EPA EMPACT program.
- Assistance from Staff at UW.
- Support from Puget Sound Clean Air Agency.
- Benefited from codes/assistance by:
-  Mike Barna (now at CIRA).
- Guangfeng Jiang (now at PNL).
-  Susan O’Neill at WSU.
- Support for netCDF and PAVE use from MCNC Environmental  Programs group.

## Thank you for your attention.

- Questions, Comments, and Suggestions, Please!