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Atmospheric Model Development
Research Programs
This research is aimed at providing state-of-science air quality models and guidance for their use in the implementation of National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for ozone and fine particulate matter (PM 2.5). The principal effort is to develop and improve the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) modeling system, a multiscale and multi-pollutant chemistry-transport model (CTM). Specific research components include: meteorological modeling, land-surface and planetary boundary layer (PBL) modeling, gas-phase chemical mechanisms and solvers, aerosol representations in grid-based air quality models, plume-in-grid treatment for large elevated sources of pollution, and CMAQ code integration and efficiencies.
The objectives of this research program are to continuously develop and improve the mesoscale (regional through urban scale) air quality simulation models, including CMAQ, as air quality management and NAAQS implementation tools. The CMAQ CTM includes the necessary critical science process modules for handling atmospheric transport, deposition, cloud mixing, emissions, gas- and aqueous-phase chemical transformation processes, and aerosol dynamics and atmospheric chemistry. Research is conducted to develop and test appropriate chemical and physical mechanisms, improve the accuracy of emissions and dry deposition algorithms, and to develop and advance state-of-science meteorology models and contributing process parameterizations.