Description of the Mesoscale Nonhydrostatic Chemistry model and application to a transboundary pollution episode between northern France and southern England

Abstract

[1] The mesoscale air quality Mesoscale Nonhydrostatic Chemistry (Meso-NH-C) model is applied to a complex pollution episode over Western Europe during the period 11 to 12 August 1997. As observed in satellite pictures and as simulated, the complexity of this episode is related to the presence of anticyclonic clear-sky areas and regions with deep convective activity in the simulation domain. A brief presentation of the model is made that covers in particular the on-line coupling capability for calculating meteorological and chemical concentration fields at each time step. Then, emphasis is put upon the simulation of transboundary pollution fluxes from London to northern France in a zone of large horizontal wind gradients. Comparison with data from the French Agence De l'Environnement et de la Maitrise de l'Energie (ADEME) pollution network indicates that ozone concentrations and time of arrival of the pollution plume are correctly predicted at surface stations in northern France. A sensitivity analysis relying upon local ozone production and pollution transport has shown that $30% of ozone maxima levels could be attributed to regional transboundary fluxes.

New approach to monitor transboundary particulate pollution over Northeast Asia

“…Quantitative evaluation of transboundary air pollution remains a difficult task and currently cannot be done based on observations alone due to a lack of explicit source signatures and lack of an appropriate observation system (Malcolm et al, 2000;Brankov et al, 2003;Tulet et al, 2003;Schaub et al, 2005;Wang et al, 2009). Most current evaluations of transboundary transport of pollutants are based on chemistry-transport model (CTM) simulations (Levy II and Moxim, 1987;Arndt et al, 1998;Holloway et al, 2002;Wang et al, 2009;Yamaji et al, 2012).…”

“…Asia, but also in Europe and North America, causing a number of different international problems such as acid precipitation, rising levels of hemispheric ground-level ozone, and regional visibility impairment (Levy II and Moxim, 1987;Brankov et al, 2003;Holloway et al, 2003;Tulet et al, 2003;Wang et al, 2009). To manage transboundary air pollution between countries, the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP) under the UNECE (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe) was launched to lessen air pollution through the LRT in 1979 (http://www.unece.org/env/lrtap/lrtap_h1.html).…”

Modeling lightning-NO<sub><i>x</i></sub> chemistry on a sub-grid scale in a global chemical transport model

“…The model includes a non-hydrostatic and anelastic system of equations (Lafore et al, 1998) and has a complete set of parameterizations allowing us to reproduce physical processes such as radiation (Gregory et al, 2000), atmospheric turbulence (Cuxart et al, 1999), convection (Bechtold et al, 2000), microphysics related to warm clouds (Cohard and Pinty, 2000), and atmospheric ice (Pinty and Jabouille, 1999;Lascaux et al, 2006). Meso-NH includes also online chemistry (Tulet et al, 2003(Tulet et al, , 2006. The model deals with large (synoptic) to small (large eddy) scales.…”

Regional Modeling of Aerosol Chemical Composition at the Puy de Dôme (France)

“…The gas phase chemistry in Meso-NH was described by Suhre et al, (1998) and Tulet et al, (2003). The ReLACS2 scheme (Regional Lumped Atmospheric Chemical Scheme 2) used in this study is based upon a reduction of the original CACM (Caltech Atmospheric Chemistry Mechanism; Griffin et al, 2005).…”

“…Meso-NH (Lafore et al, 1998;Tulet et al, 2003) and WRF/CHEM are two anelastic, non-hydrostatic, mesoscale atmospheric models with "on-line" coupling between meteorological and chemical fields at each time step of the simulation . Both models simulate atmospheric phenomena with horizontal resolutions from a few metres (LES) to a few kilometres (synoptic-scale).…”