Coupled mesoscale-microscale modeling of air quality in a polluted city using WRF-LES-Chem

To perform realistic high-resolution air quality modeling in a polluted urban area, the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model is used with an embedded large-eddy simulation (LES) module and online chemistry. As an illustration, a numerical experiment is conducted in the megacity of Hong Kong, which is characterized by multi-type inhomogeneous pollution sources and complex topography. The results from the multi-resolution simulations at mesoscale and LES scales are evaluated by comparing them with ozone sounding profiles and surface observations. The comparisons show that both mesoscale and LES simulations reproduce the mean concentrations of the chemical species and their diurnal variations at the background stations well. However, the mesoscale simulations largely underestimate the NOx concentrations and overestimate O-3 at the roadside stations due to the coarse representation of the traffic emissions. The LES simulations improve the agreement with the measurements near the road traffic, and the LES with the highest spatial resolution (33.3 m) provides the best results. The large-eddy simulations show more detailed structures in the spatial distributions of chemical species than the mesoscale simulations, highlighting the capability of LES to resolve high-resolution photochemical transformations in urban areas. Compared to the mesoscale model results, the LES simulations show similar evolutions in the profiles of the chemical species as a function of the boundary layer development over a diurnal cycle.

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Author Wang, Yuting
Ma, Yong-Feng
Muñoz-Esparza, Domingo
Dai, Jianing
Li, Cathy Wing Yi
Lichtig, Pablo
Tsang, Roy Chun-Wang
Liu, Chun-Ho
Wang, Tao
Brasseur, Guy Pierre
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2023-05-30T00:00:00
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Not Assigned
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Topic Category geoscientificInformation
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Metadata Date 2023-08-18T18:40:27.664336
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:26371
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Wang, Yuting, Ma, Yong-Feng, Muñoz-Esparza, Domingo, Dai, Jianing, Li, Cathy Wing Yi, Lichtig, Pablo, Tsang, Roy Chun-Wang, Liu, Chun-Ho, Wang, Tao, Brasseur, Guy Pierre. (2023). Coupled mesoscale-microscale modeling of air quality in a polluted city using WRF-LES-Chem. UCAR/NCAR - Library. http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7xk8kjm. Accessed 15 February 2025.

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