Two-way coupled meteorology and air quality models in Asia: a systematic review and meta-analysis of impacts of aerosol feedbacks on meteorology and air quality

Abstract

Abstract. Atmospheric aerosols can exert an influence on meteorology and air quality through aerosol–radiation interaction (ARI) and aerosol–cloud interaction (ACI), and this two-way feedback has been studied by applying two-way coupled meteorology and air quality models. As one of the regions with the highest aerosol loading in the world, Asia has attracted many researchers to investigate the aerosol effects with several two-way coupled models (WRF-Chem, WRF-CMAQ, GRAPES-CUACE, WRF-NAQPMS, and GATOR-GCMOM) over the last decade. This paper attempts to offer a bibliographic analysis regarding the current status of applications of two-way coupled models in Asia, related research focuses, model performances, and the effects of ARI and/or ACI on meteorology and air quality. There were a total of 160 peer-reviewed articles published between 2010 and 2019 in Asia meeting the inclusion criteria, with more than 79 % of papers involving the WRF-Chem model. The number of relevant publications has an upward trend annually, and East Asia, India, and China, as well as the North China Plain are the most studied areas. The effects of ARI and both ARI and ACI induced by natural aerosols (particularly mineral dust) and anthropogenic aerosols (bulk aerosols, different chemical compositions, and aerosols from different sources) are widely investigated in Asia. Through the meta-analysis of surface meteorological and air quality variables simulated by two-way coupled models, the model performance affected by aerosol feedbacks depends on different variables, simulation time lengths, selection of two-way coupled models, and study areas. Future research perspectives with respect to the development, improvement, application, and evaluation of two-way coupled meteorology and air quality models are proposed.

Reduction in Near‐Surface Wind Speeds With Increasing CO2 May Worsen Winter Air Quality in the Indo‐Gangetic Plain

“…We find that the relationship between changes in the sfcWind distribution and global temperature is similar to that derived from the idealized 1pctCO2 simulation (Figures S5 and S10 in Supporting Information S1). In contrast, we find that the response of INV is much stronger (Figures S7 and S11 in Supporting Information S1), consistent with previous studies (Gao et al, 2022;Hingmire et al, 2021;Ramanathan et al, 2005;Yang et al, 2016), which have demonstrated that higher anthropogenic aerosols tend to increase atmospheric stability.…”

Inter-comparison of multiple two-way coupled meteorology and air quality models (WRF v4.1.1-CMAQ v5.3.1, WRF-Chem v4.1.1 and WRF v3.7.1-CHIMERE v2020r1) in eastern China

“…Therefore, numerical representations of non-spherical aerosol optical properties need to be implemented in two-way coupled models to reduce uncertainties in the ARI calculations. Previous observational and modeling studies revealed that there are still large uncertainties in the impacts of ACI on cloud and precipitation (Seinfeld et al, 2016;IPCC, 2021;Gao et al, 2022), and more researchers have focused on these gaps and gained some remarkable developments on aerosol water uptake and in-/below-cloud scavenging in recent years (Xu et al, 2019;Brüggemann et al, 2020;Kärcher and Marcolli, 2021;Cantrell et al, 2022;Ryu and Min, 2022;Hogrefe et al, 2023). The latest observational investigations for coefficient modifications and newly developed parameterizations/schemes need to be incorporated into the two-way coupled models, such as WRF-CMAQ, WRF-Chem…”

Ambient fine particulate matter and ozone pollution in China: synergy in anthropogenic emissions and atmospheric processes

“…Aerosol was proven to have direct effects on radiative forcing by absorbing or scattering radiation and indirect effects by participating in cloud formation (Bond et al 2013, Hong et al 2017, Liu and Matsui 2021. Gao et al (2022) reported anthropogenic aerosols decreased shortwave radiative force at the bottom of the atmosphere by 0.45-140.00 Wm −2 in Asia. Thus, the radiative effect can influence ozone formation via its impact on thermal and photolysis reactions.…”