Evaluation of a Coupled Mesoscale Meteorology and Chemistry Model Over the Mediterranean

D. G. Amanatidis (1) , S. Myriokefalitakis (1) , Nikolaos Daskalakis (2) , M. Kanakidou (1)

1 ECPL - Environmental Chemical Processes Laboratory [Heraklion]
2 TROPO - LATMOS

The performance of the coupled mesoscale meteorology and chemistry model WRF/CHEM to simulate the atmospheric composition over the Mediterranean is here evaluated. The model configuration applied for this study uses the gas phase chemical mechanism Mozart and a spatial resolution of 36 × 36 km, which nests in lower resolutions (12 × 12 km and 7.2 × 7.2 km). Anthropogenic surface emissions developed in the frame of the ECLIPSE EU FP7 project and biomass burning emissions from the FINN database are used. Mineral dust aerosol emissions are derived from the GOCART dust model and biogenic emissions are calculated online by the MEGAN model. The global 3-dimensional chemistry-transport model TM4-ECPL is providing the initial and boundaries chemical conditions for the coarse resolution mesoscale model. The results show that the mesoscale model overestimates O3 surface levels at most stations by up to about 70 % and underestimates CO surface levels by up to about 25 %. Strong correlations between simulations and observations are computed for 60 % of the studied O3 stations and 20 % of the studied CO stations. No significant change in the model performance as a function of the studied model resolutions was found.

Domaines: Physique Atmosphérique et Océanique [physics.ao-ph]

D. G. Amanatidis, S. Myriokefalitakis, Nikolaos Daskalakis, M. Kanakidou. Evaluation of a Coupled Mesoscale Meteorology and Chemistry Model Over the Mediterranean. Theodore Karacostas, Alkiviadis Bais, Panagiotis T. Nastos. Perspectives on Atmospheric Sciences, Springer International Publishing, pp.1223-1229, 2017, 978-3-319-35094-3. ⟨10.1007/978-3-319-35095-0_176⟩. ⟨insu-01367882⟩