WRF 2008
Abstract
The 3SAQS used the 2008 WRF modeling conducted for the Western Regional West-wide Jump Start Air Quality Modeling Study (WestJumpAQMS). The WestJumpAQMS was used to develop a regional photochemical grid model (PGM) modeling platform for the western states. The PGM modeling platform was used to address issues related to ozone, fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and visibility. While WRF results from the WestJumpAQMS were available for the 2008 calendar year with grid resolutions of 36, 12 and 4 km, the 3SAQS only used the meteorology results on the 36 and 12-km domains.For the WestJumpAQMS study the Weather Research Forecast (WRF Version 3.3.1) Advanced Research WRF (WRF-ARW) was applied for the 2008 calendar year on a 36 km continental U.S. (CONUS), 12 km western U.S. (WESTUS) and 4 km Intermountain West Domain (IMWD) modeling domains. The 2008 WRF 36/12/4 km simulation was run in 5-day segments using multiprocessing with 8 nodes per run segment. The 2008 WRF simulation was evaluated against surface wind, temperature and mixing ratio observations and maps of precipitation analysis fields based on observations prepared by the Climate Prediction Center (CPC).
The WestJumpAQMS 2008 WRF model performance was compared to other prognostic model performance evaluations for comparable regions and recent (2002 - 2006) modeling years. The WestJumpAQMS model performance was typically as good as or better than these other recent prognostic meteorological model applications that have been used for air quality model applications, which included the WRAP 2002 MM5 application. The WRF performance evaluation concluded that the WestJumpAQMS 2008 WRF application exhibited reasonably good model performance that was as good or better than other recent prognostic model applications used in air quality planning and it was therefore reasonable to proceed with their use as inputs for photochemical grid modeling.