2011a Modeling Platform

Recommendations

April 29, 2015

The Western / 3-State Air Quality Study’s 2011a modeling platform and individual components as described below are released for use in regional air quality modeling studies by the Western / 3-State Air Quality Study cooperating agencies for use in their studies, and for external users approved by the cooperators.

The 2011a platform is suitable for regional studies of warm season ozone. Studies of: 1) cold season ozone formation; 2) particulate matter, visibility, and deposition, in general; and 3) decisions about which global model boundary conditions to apply should be undertaken only with knowledge and understanding of the limitations on model performance discussed in the 2011a platform documentation.

A 2011 version B (2011b) platform that will improve specific model performance issues in the 2011a platform is in development. The planned release of the 2011b platform is Fall 2015. All 2011a modeling data and results are available through the Western / 3-State Data Warehouse Data Request page.

Description

The 3SAQS_2011a2011a platform consists of data and software for simulating year 2011 air quality over a modeling domain focused on the states of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. The 3SAQS_2011a Modeling Protocol and Model Performance Evaluation reports provide additional details on this modeling platform.

The table below lists the 3SAQS_2011a2011a air quality modeling platform components, including a qualitative metric of the level of evaluation for each component. The Level of Evaluation metric conveys the levelamount of evaluation conducted either in general or by the 3SAQS team on the modeling platform component. This metric does not indicate the quality of the component; it serves as an indicator of how much scrutiny has been applied to the component.

The data components cover only the input data to the chemistry-transport models. For information on data further up the processing chain, such as the emissions inventories used as inputs to SMOKE, refer to the Wiki pages for the different components.

Multiple options currently exist for initial/boundary condition data for this platform. The 3SAQS team evaluated the impacts of the boundary conditions on CAMx model performance and concluded that each of the BC data options have merits and weaknesses. We are providing multiple BC options with the 3SAQS_2011a2011a platform to allow users of these data to choose the best dataset for their modeling study.

Type	Option	Source	Description	Notes/References	Level of Evaluation (1=low, 10=high)
Modeling Software
	CAMx v6.10	ENVIRON	Chemistry-transport model configured with CB6r2 photochemistry	www.camx.com	8
	CMAQ v5.0.2	US EPA	Chemistry-transport model configured with CB05 photochemistry	www.cmaq-model.org	8
	WRF v3.5.1	NOAA	Regional climate model configured for simulating meteorology over the Inter-mountain West	www.wrf-model.org	8
	SMOKEv3.5.1	UNC-IE	Emissions processor for preparing emissions inventory and ancillary data for input to chemistry-transport models	www.smoke-model.org	8
Emissions Data
	Emissions v2011a	3SAQS	2011 emissions data prepared for CAMx and CMAQ with SMOKE	Wiki Evaluation Report	7
	Emissions v2020a_11	3SAQS	2020 emissions data prepared for CAMx with SMOKE	Evaluation Report	6
Meteorology Data
	Meteorology v2011a	3SAQS	2011 meteorology data estimated with WRF and prepared for CAMx and CMAQ with WRFCAMx and MCIP	This WRF simulation was not configured for wintertime O3 conditions Wiki Evaluation report	7
Initial and Boundary Condition Data
	MOZART ICBCs	NOAA/3SAQS	2011 Initial/Boundary Conditions from NOAA global GEOS5 MOZART simulations; prepared for CAMx with MZ2CAMx	TheMZ2CAMx; MOZARTfine (MZ)and boundarycoarse conditions bring too muchmode dust intocapped theat 3SAQS10 modelingug/m3 domains.and sea salt removed.	While the ozone and inorganic PM model performance with the MZ BC's is generally acceptable (see 3SAQS CAMx B11a MPE report), the total PM2.5 concentrations are too high. The 3SAQS modeling team capped the dust and removed sea salt from the MOZART (MZ) boundary conditions to mitigate CAMx total PM2.5 model performance problems. Modeling has not been conducted by the 3SAQS team to evaluate the impacts of the adjusted boundary conditions on CAMx performance. Wiki	8
	Geos-Chem ICBCs	Harvard/3SAQS	2011 Initial/Boundary Conditions from Harvard global GEOS-Chem simulations; prepared for CAMx with GEOS2CAMxGEOS2CAMx; fine and coarse mode dust capped at 10 ug/m3 and sea salt removed.	TheWhile the GEOS-Chem (GC) boundary conditions reduce the dust concentrations in the 3SAQS modeling domains;domains, unreasonably high dust fluxes from the boundary persist; the CAMx performance for ozone and inorganic PM species degrades relative to the MZ boundary conditions. The 3SAQS modeling team capped the dust and removed sea salt from the GEOS-Chem (GC) boundary conditions to mitigate CAMx total PM2.5 model performance problems. Modeling has not been conducted by the 3SAQS team to evaluate the impacts of the adjusted boundary conditions on CAMx performance. Wiki	8
	Hybrid MZ-GCAM3 ICBCs	3SAQSNOAA GFDL	2011 Initial/Boundary ConditionsConditions; withhourly non-dustdata for long-lived species from NOAA MOZART runs and dustmonthly speciesaverages fromfor Harvardshort-lived GEOS-Chem runsspecies.	TheModeling is underway by the 3SAQS modeling team engineeredto an ICBC dataset that leveragesevaluate the best features of both the MZ and GC global model results. The hybrid BCs combine the GC dust concentrations with the restimpacts of the speciesAM3 (gasboundary andconditions aerosols) from MZ. We have not run aon CAMx simulation with the hybrid ICBC data.performance.	1
Other Input Data
	Ozone Columns	NASA	Daily ozone column data processed for CAMx using the utility AHOMAPv4	Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer/Ozone Monitoring Instrument	2
	Chemistry Parameters	ENVIRON	CAMxv6.10 chemistry parameters files for CB6r2 and aerosol module CF		9
	Landuse	ENVIRON	NALC data merged with Leaf Area Index data using ArcGIS macros, Perl, and Fortran
	Total UV columns	ENVIRON	Daily photolysis rates calculated using TUV v4.8	Average values for typical snow cover. These data do not simulate the more reflective white snow that typically occurs during winter high ozone events in southwest Wyoming and the Uinta Basin in Utah.	7
Model Performance
	Air Quality Observations	N/A	N/A	List of aerometric data used to evaluation the 2011 CAMx and CMAQ simulations	2011 Observational Data
	Meteorology MPE report	N/A	3SAQS	Report detailing the methods and results of determining the quality of the 3SAQS 2011 WRF modeling	2011 WRF MPE Report
	Air Quality MPE report	N/A	3SAQS	Report detailing the methods and results of determining the quality of the 3SAQS 2011 air quality modeling	2011 CAMx MPE Report
	Evaluation glossary	N/A	3SAQS	Glossary of Evaluation Products
Output Data
	CAMx Base11a_MZBC	3SAQS	Output data from a 2011 36/12/4-km domain CAMx simulation with MOZART boundary conditions	Wiki	8
	CAMx Base11a_GCBC	3SAQS	Output data from a 2011 36/12/4-km domain CAMx simulation with GEOS-Chem boundary conditions	Wiki	8
	CAMx Base11a_HyBC	3SAQS	Output data from a 2011 36/12/4-km domain CAMx simulation with Hybrid boundary conditions: Dust from GEOS-Chem, everything else from MOZART	Not yet available
	CMAQ Base11a_GCBC	3SAQS	4-km domain only CMAQ simulation with BC's derived from CAMx simulation Base11a2	In progress	8
	CAMx Base20a_11	3SAQS	Output data from a 2011-based 2020 36/12/4-km domain CAMx simulation with MOZART boundary conditions; note that there will not be a Base2011a projection simulation that uses GEOS-Chem or hybrid boundary conditions data.	Attainment Test	5