Mason researchers to transition weather-aware rapid refresh emission modeling capability (WAR2EMC) to support national air quality forecast capability operations
Bok Haeng Baek, Research Associate Professor, Center for Spatial Information Science and Systems (CSISS); Youhua Tang, Senior Researcher, CSISS, and Patrick C. Campbell, Research Assistant Professor, CSISS,are set toreceive funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for the project: "Transitioning Weather-Aware Rapid Refresh Emission Modeling Capability (WAR2EMC) to Support National Air Quality Forecast Capability Operations."
The goals of this proposed project include:
- Development of the latest U.S. EPA National Emissions Inventory (NEI) for NAQFC;
- Deployment of WAR2-EMC to inline NAQFC; and
- Evaluation of inline NAQFC with WAR2-EMC
The researchers expect that this work will significantly improve the temporal and spatial representations of meteorology-induced emission sources with the direct/indirect feedback meteorology predictions from inline/offline NAQFC which result in improving the regional atmospheric chemicals and aerosol predictions, especially during the high ozone and PM2.5 episodes.
To accurately predict regional and global chemical forecasts, highly resolved spatiotemporal meteorology and emissions are critical and required, and expected to be rapidly refreshed based on the direct and indirect feedbacks between atmospheric chemical compositions and meteorology with accurately estimated emissions. There have been considerable efforts in meteorology prediction enhancements actively conducted. However, there have been only limited “inline” emissions processing enhancements made to the chemical transport modeling (CTM) system wherein emissions from meteorologically driven air pollutant emission processes are dynamically coupled within the regional/global CTM modeling system, rather than being estimated a priori and statically provided as model inputs. Simulating emissions “inline” is especially crucial for NAQFC because it allows the system to induce the influences of the forecast meteorology on emissions from key sources such as stationary power plants, vegetation, fertilizer applications such as mineral dust, sea salt, biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs), and biomass burning events.
Baek, Tang, and Campbell received $598,383 from NOAA for this research. Funding will begin in Sept. 2022 and will end in late Aug. 2025.
