Title
Impact of grid resolution on the predicted fine PM by a regional 3-D chemical transport model
Author
Fountoukis, C.
Koraj, D.
Denier van der Gon, H.A.C.
Charalampidis, P.E.
Pilinis, C.
Pandis, S.N.
Publication year
2013
Abstract
This study examines the role of horizontal grid resolution on the performance of the regional three dimensional chemical transport model (CTM) PMCAMx. Two cases were investigated. First, the model was applied over the Northeastern United States with grid resolutions of 36 and 12 km during both a summer and a winter period. In this case the emission inventory was simply interpolated from the low resolution version. In the second case a multi-scale 36/4 km grid resolution is used over Western Europe with high resolution (4 × 4 km) emissions. The improvement in model predictions with the fine grid is modest during the summer and more significant during wintertime at both domains. Major differences are predicted mostly for primary (organics and black carbon (BC)) rather than secondary (e.g. sulfate) species. The use of high grid resolution decreases the bias for BC concentration by more than 30% in the Northeastern US during wintertime. In the Megacity of Paris, using high resolution emissions and a 4-km grid decreases the fractional bias for organic aerosol (OA) from 80% to 60% in the city center and produces much larger spatial concentration gradients in the domain as compared to the emissions being interpolated. These results suggest that future work should combine high grid resolution with high resolution emissions, taking into consideration, though, that the grid resolution is not currently the major source of the discrepancies between model predictions and observations. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd.
Subject
Earth & Environment
CAS - Climate, Air and Sustainability
EELS - Earth, Environmental and Life Sciences
Urban Development
Environment
Built Environment
Black carbon
Grid resolution
Megacity
Organic aerosol
Regional CTM
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http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:dcaffbc4-8c6e-4e39-905d-b2b1df53c8c7
TNO identifier
466848
ISSN
1352-2310
Source
Atmospheric Environment, 68, 24-32
Document type
article