Identification

Title

Simulation of Mexico City plumes during the MIRAGE-Mex field campaign using the WRF-Chem model

Abstract

The quantification of tropospheric O? production in the downwind of the Mexico City plume is a major objective of the MIRAGE-Mex field campaign. We used a regional chemistry-transport model (WRF-Chem) to predict the distribution of O? and its precursors in Mexico City and the surrounding region during March 2006, and compared the model with in-situ aircraft measurements of O?, CO, VOCs, NOx, and NOy concentrations. The comparison shows that the model is capable of capturing the timing and location of the measured city plumes, and the calculated variability along the flights is generally consistent with the measured results, showing a rapid increase in O? and its precursors when city plumes are detected. However, there are some notable differences between the calculated and measured values, suggesting that, during transport from the surface of the city to the outflow plume, ozone mixing ratios are underestimated by about 0-25% during different flights. The calculated O?-NOx, O?-CO, and O?-NOz correlations generally agree with the measured values, and the analyses of these correlations suggest that photochemical O? production continues in the plume downwind of the city (aged plume), adding to the O? already produced in the city and exported with the plume. The model is also used to quantify the contributions to OH reactivity from various compounds in the aged plume. This analysis suggests that oxygenated organics (OVOCs) have the highest OH reactivity and play important roles for the O? production in the aging plume. Furthermore, O? production per NOx molecule consumed (O? production efficiency) is more efficient in the aged plume than in the young plume near the city. The major contributor to the high O? production efficiency in the aged plume is the reaction RO&#8322+NO. By contrast, the reaction of HO&#8322+NO is rather uniformly distributed in the plume.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7h70gv6

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2009-07-19T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Copyright Authors 2009. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata date

2025-07-17T15:30:17.446400

Metadata language

eng; USA