Comparative analysis of meteorological performance of coupled chemistry-meteorology models in the context of AQMEII phase 2

Air pollution simulations critically depend on the quality of the underlying meteorology. In phase 2 of the Air Quality Model Evaluation International Initiative (AQMEII-2), thirteen modeling groups from Europe and four groups from North America operating eight different regional coupled chemistry and meteorology models participated in a coordinated model evaluation exercise. Each group simulated the year 2010 for a domain covering either Europe or North America or both. Here were present an operational analysis of model performance with respect to key meteorological variables relevant for atmospheric chemistry processes and air quality. These parameters include temperature and wind speed at the surface and in the vertical profile, incoming solar radiation at the ground, precipitation, and planetary boundary layer heights. A similar analysis was performed during AQMEII phase 1 (Vautard et al., 2012) for offline air quality models not directly coupled to the meteorological model core as the model systems investigated here. Similar to phase 1, we found significant overpredictions of 10-m wind speeds by most models, more pronounced during night than during daytime. The seasonal evolution of temperature was well captured with monthly mean biases below 2 K over all domains. Solar incoming radiation, precipitation and PBL heights, on the other hand, showed significant spread between models and observations suggesting that major challenges still remain in the simulation of meteorological parameters relevant for air quality and for chemistry–climate interactions at the regional scale.

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Author Brunner, Dominik
Savage, Nicholas
Jorba, Oriol
Eder, Brian
Giordano, Lea
Badia, Alba
Balzarini, Alessandra
Baró, Rocío
Bianconi, Roberto
Chemel, Charles
Curci, Gabriele
Forkel, Renate
Jiménez-Guerrero, Pedro
Hirtl, Marcus
Hodzic, Alma
Honzak, Luka
Im, Ulas
Knote, Christoph
Makar, Paul
Manders-Groot, Astrid
van Meijgaard, Erik
Neal, Lucy
Pérez, Juan
Pirovano, Guido
San Jose, Roberto
Schröder, Wolfram
Sokhi, Ranjeet
Syrakov, Dimiter
Torian, Alfreida
Tuccella, Paolo
Werhahn, Johannes
Wolke, Ralf
Yahya, Khairunnisa
Zabkar, Rahela
Zhang, Yang
Hogrefe, Christian
Galmarini, Stefano
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2015-08-01T00:00:00
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Not Assigned
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Resource Version N/A
Topic Category geoscientificInformation
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Metadata Date 2023-08-18T18:42:59.049851
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:16755
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Brunner, Dominik, Savage, Nicholas, Jorba, Oriol, Eder, Brian, Giordano, Lea, Badia, Alba, Balzarini, Alessandra, Baró, Rocío, Bianconi, Roberto, Chemel, Charles, Curci, Gabriele, Forkel, Renate, Jiménez-Guerrero, Pedro, Hirtl, Marcus, Hodzic, Alma, Honzak, Luka, Im, Ulas, Knote, Christoph, Makar, Paul, Manders-Groot, Astrid, van Meijgaard, Erik, Neal, Lucy, Pérez, Juan, Pirovano, Guido, San Jose, Roberto, Schröder, Wolfram, Sokhi, Ranjeet, Syrakov, Dimiter, Torian, Alfreida, Tuccella, Paolo, Werhahn, Johannes, Wolke, Ralf, Yahya, Khairunnisa, Zabkar, Rahela, Zhang, Yang, Hogrefe, Christian, Galmarini, Stefano. (2015). Comparative analysis of meteorological performance of coupled chemistry-meteorology models in the context of AQMEII phase 2. UCAR/NCAR - Library. http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7ns0w32. Accessed 26 June 2025.

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