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Description and evaluation of the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) modeling system version 5.1.

ABSTRACT: The Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model is a comprehensive multipollutant air quality modeling system developed and maintained by the US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Office of Research and Development (ORD). Recently, version 5.1 of the CMAQ model (v5.1) was released to the public, incorporating a large number of science updates and extended capabilities over the previous release version of the model (v5.0.2). These updates include the following: improvements in the meteorological calculations in both CMAQ and the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model used to provide meteorological fields to CMAQ, updates to the gas and aerosol chemistry, revisions to the calculations of clouds and photolysis, and improvements to the dry and wet deposition in the model. Sensitivity simulations isolating several of the major updates to the modeling system show that changes to the meteorological calculations result in enhanced afternoon and early evening mixing in the model, periods when the model historically underestimates mixing. This enhanced mixing results in higher ozone (O3) mixing ratios on average due to reduced NO titration, and lower fine particulate matter (PM2.5) concentrations due to greater dilution of primary pollutants (e.g., elemental and organic carbon). Updates to the clouds and photolysis calculations greatly improve consistency between the WRF and CMAQ models and result in generally higher O3 mixing ratios, primarily due to reduced cloudiness and attenuation of photolysis in the model. Updates to the aerosol chemistry result in higher secondary organic aerosol (SOA) concentrations in the summer, thereby reducing summertime PM2.5 bias (PM2.5 is typically underestimated by CMAQ in the summer), while updates to the gas chemistry result in slightly higher O3 and PM2.5 on average in January and July. Overall, the seasonal variation in simulated PM2.5 generally improves in CMAQv5.1 (when considering all model updates), as simulated PM2.5 concentrations decrease in the winter (when PM2.5 is generally overestimated by CMAQ) and increase in the summer (when PM2.5 is generally underestimated by CMAQ). Ozone mixing ratios are higher on average with v5.1 vs. v5.0.2, resulting in higher O3 mean bias, as O3 tends to be overestimated by CMAQ throughout most of the year (especially at locations where the observed O3 is low); however, O3 correlation is largely improved with v5.1. Sensitivity simulations for several hypothetical emission reduction scenarios show that v5.1 tends to be slightly more responsive to reductions in NO x (NO + NO2), VOC and SO x (SO2 + SO4) emissions than v5.0.2, representing an improvement as previous studies have shown CMAQ to underestimate the observed reduction in O3 due to large, widespread reductions in observed emissions.

SUBMITTER: Appel KW

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6104654 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Description and evaluation of the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) modeling system version 5.1.

Appel K Wyat KW Napelenok Sergey L SL Foley Kristen M KM Pye Havala O T HOT Hogrefe Christian C Luecken Deborah J DJ Bash Jesse O JO Roselle Shawn J SJ Pleim Jonathan E JE Foroutan Hosein H Hutzell William T WT Pouliot George A GA Sarwar Golam G Fahey Kathleen M KM Gantt Brett B Gilliam Robert C RC Heath Nicholas K NK Kang Daiwen D Mathur Rohit R Schwede Donna B DB Spero Tanya L TL Wong David C DC Young Jeffrey O JO

Geoscientific model development 20170101 4

The Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model is a comprehensive multipollutant air quality modeling system developed and maintained by the US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Office of Research and Development (ORD). Recently, version 5.1 of the CMAQ model (v5.1) was released to the public, incorporating a large number of science updates and extended capabilities over the previous release version of the model (v5.0.2). These updates include the following: improvements in the meteorol ...[more]

PMID: 30147852

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Project description:The Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model version 5.3 (CMAQ53), released to the public in August 2019 and followed by version 5.3.1 (CMAQ531) in December 2019, contains numerous science updates, enhanced functionality, and improved computation efficiency relative to the previous version of the model, 5.2.1 (CMAQ521). Major science advances in the new model include a new aerosol module (AERO7) with significant updates to secondary organic aerosol (SOA) chemistry, updated chlorine chemistry, updated detailed bromine and iodine chemistry, updated simple halogen chemistry, the addition of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) chemistry in the CB6r3 chemical mechanism, updated M3Dry bidirectional deposition model, and the new Surface Tiled Aerosol and Gaseous Exchange (STAGE) bidirectional deposition model. In addition, support for the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model's hybrid vertical coordinate (HVC) was added to CMAQ53 and the Meteorology-Chemistry Interface Processor (MCIP) version 5.0 (MCIP50). Enhanced functionality in CMAQ53 includes the new Detailed Emissions Scaling, Isolation and Diagnostic (DESID) system for scaling incoming emissions to CMAQ and reading multiple gridded input emission files. Evaluation of CMAQ531 was performed by comparing monthly and seasonal mean daily 8 h average (MDA8) O3 and daily PM2.5 values from several CMAQ531 simulations to a similarly configured CMAQ521 simulation encompassing 2016. For MDA8 O3, CMAQ531 has higher O3 in the winter versus CMAQ521, due primarily to reduced dry deposition to snow, which strongly reduces wintertime O3 bias (2-4 ppbv monthly average). MDA8 O3 is lower with CMAQ531 throughout the rest of the year, particularly in spring, due in part to reduced O3 from the lateral boundary conditions (BCs), which generally increases MDA8 O3 bias in spring and fall ( 0.5 μg m-3). For daily 24 h average PM2.5, CMAQ531 has lower concentrations on average in spring and fall, higher concentrations in summer, and similar concentrations in winter to CMAQ521, which slightly increases bias in spring and fall and reduces bias in summer. Comparisons were also performed to isolate updates to several specific aspects of the modeling system, namely the lateral BCs, meteorology model version, and the deposition model used. Transitioning from a hemispheric CMAQ (HCMAQ) version 5.2.1 simulation to a HCMAQ version 5.3 simulation to provide lateral BCs contributes to higher O3 mixing ratios in the regional CMAQ simulation in higher latitudes during winter (due to the decreased O3 dry deposition to snow in CMAQ53) and lower O3 mixing ratios in middle and lower latitudes year-round (due to reduced O3 over the ocean with CMAQ53). Transitioning from WRF version 3.8 to WRF version 4.1.1 with the HVC resulted in consistently higher (1.0-1.5 ppbv) MDA8 O3 mixing ratios and higher PM2.5 concentrations (0.1-0.25 μg m-3) throughout the year. Finally, comparisons of the M3Dry and STAGE deposition models showed that MDA8 O3 is generally higher with M3Dry outside of summer, while PM2.5 is consistently higher with STAGE due to differences in the assumptions of particle deposition velocities to non-vegetated surfaces and land use with short vegetation (e.g., grasslands) between the two models. For ambient NH3, STAGE has slightly higher concentrations and smaller bias in the winter, spring, and fall, while M3Dry has higher concentrations and smaller bias but larger error and lower correlation in the summer.

Project description:Previous epidemiologic studies suggest associations between preterm birth and ambient air pollution.We investigated associations between 11 ambient air pollutants, estimated by combining Community Multiscale Air Quality model (CMAQ) simulations with measurements from stationary monitors, and risk of preterm birth (< 37 weeks of gestation) in the U.S. state of Georgia.Birth records for singleton births ≥ 27 weeks of gestation with complete covariate information and estimated dates of conception between 1 January 2002 and 28 February 2006 were obtained from the Office of Health Indicators for Planning, Georgia Department of Public Health (n = 511,658 births). Daily pollutant concentrations at 12-km resolution were estimated for 11 ambient air pollutants. We used logistic regression with county-level fixed effects to estimate associations between preterm birth and average pollutant concentrations during the first and second trimester. Discrete-time survival models were used to estimate third-trimester and total pregnancy associations. Effect modification was investigated by maternal education, race, census tract poverty level, and county-level urbanicity.Trimester-specific and total pregnancy associations (p < 0.05) were observed for several pollutants. All the traffic-related pollutants (carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, PM2.5 elemental carbon) were associated with preterm birth [e.g., odds ratios for interquartile range increases in carbon monoxide during the first, second, and third trimesters and total pregnancy were 1.005 (95% CI: 1.001, 1.009), 1.007 (95% CI: 1.002, 1.011), 1.010 (95% CI: 1.006, 1.014), and 1.011 (95% CI: 1.006, 1.017)]. Associations tended to be higher for mothers with low educational attainment and African American mothers.Several ambient air pollutants were associated with preterm birth; associations were observed in all exposure windows.Hao H, Chang HH, Holmes HA, Mulholland JA, Klein M, Darrow LA, Strickland MJ. 2016. Air pollution and preterm birth in the U.S. state of Georgia (2002-2006): associations with concentrations of 11 ambient air pollutants estimated by combining Community Multiscale Air Quality Model (CMAQ) simulations with stationary monitor measurements. Environ Health Perspect 124:875-880; http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1409651.

Project description:The state-of-the-science Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) Modeling System has recently been extended for hemispheric-scale modeling applications (referred to as H-CMAQ). In this study, satellite-constrained estimation of the degassing SO2 emissions from 50 volcanoes over the Northern Hemisphere is incorporated into H-CMAQ, and their impact on tropospheric sulfate aerosol ( SO42- ) levels is assessed for 2010. The volcanic degassing improves predictions of observations from the Acid Deposition Monitoring Network in East Asia (EANET), the United States Clean Air Status and Trends Network (CASTNET), and the United States Integrated Monitoring of Protected Visual Environments (IMPROVE). Over Asia, the increased SO42- concentrations were seen to correspond to the locations of volcanoes, especially over Japan and Indonesia. Over the USA, the largest impacts that occurred over the central Pacific were caused by including the Hawaiian Kilauea volcano, while the impacts on the continental USA were limited to the western portion during summertime. The emissions of the Soufrière Hills volcano located on the island of Montserrat in the Caribbean Sea affected the southeastern USA during the winter season. The analysis at specific sites in Hawaii and Florida also confirmed improvements in regional performance for modeled SO42- by including volcanoes SO2 emissions. At the edge of the western USA, monthly averaged SO42- enhancements greater than 0.1μgm-3 were noted within the boundary layer (defined as surface to 750hPa) during June- September. Investigating the change on SO42- concentration throughout the free troposphere revealed that although the considered volcanic SO2 emissions occurred at or below the middle of free troposphere (500hPa), compared to the simulation without the volcanic source, SO42- enhancements of more than 10% were detected up to the top of the free troposphere (250hPa). Our model simulations and comparisons with measurements across the Northern Hemisphere indicate that the degassing volcanic SO2 emissions are an important source and should be considered in air quality model simulations assessing background SO42- levels and their source attribution.

Dataset Information

Description and evaluation of the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) modeling system version 5.1.

Publications

Description and evaluation of the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) modeling system version 5.1.

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