A22B-06
Use of Air Quality Observations by the National Air Quality Forecast Capability

Tuesday, 15 December 2015: 11:35
3006 (Moscone West)
Ivanka Stajner1, Jeffrey McQueen2, Pius Lee3, Ariel F Stein3, Shobha Kondragunta4, Mark Ruminski5, Daniel Tong3,6, Li Pan3,6, Jian-Ping Huang2,7, Perry Shafran2,7, Ho-Chun Huang7,8, Phil Dickerson9 and Sikchya Upadhayay10, (1)NOAA, National Weather Service, Silver Spring, MD, United States, (2)NOAA, Center for Weather and Climate Prediction, National Weather Service, College Park, MD, United States, (3)NOAA Air Resources Laboratory, College Park, MD, United States, (4)NOAA/NESDIS/STAR, College Park, MD, United States, (5)NOAA College Park, NESDIS, College Park, MD, United States, (6)Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites University of Maryland, College Park, MD, United States, (7)IMSG, College Park, MD, United States, (8)National Centers for Environmental Prediction - Environmental Modeling Center, College Park, MD, United States, (9)Environmental Protection Agency Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, United States, (10)Syneren Technologies, Arlington, VA, United States
Abstract:
The National Air Quality Forecast Capability (NAQFC) operational predictions of ozone and wildfire smoke for the United States (U.S.) and predictions of airborne dust for continental U.S. are available at http://airquality.weather.gov/. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) operational North American Mesoscale (NAM) weather predictions are combined with the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model to produce the ozone predictions and test fine particulate matter (PM2.5) predictions. The Hybrid Single Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) model provides smoke and dust predictions.

Air quality observations constrain emissions used by NAQFC predictions. NAQFC NOx emissions from mobile sources were updated using National Emissions Inventory (NEI) projections for year 2012. These updates were evaluated over large U.S. cities by comparing observed changes in OMI NO2 observations and NOx measured by surface monitors. The rate of decrease in NOx emission projections from year 2005 to year 2012 is in good agreement with the observed changes over the same period. Smoke emissions rely on the fire locations detected from satellite observations obtained from NESDIS Hazard Mapping System (HMS). Dust emissions rely on a climatology of areas with a potential for dust emissions based on MODIS Deep Blue aerosol retrievals.

Verification of NAQFC predictions uses AIRNow compilation of surface measurements for ozone and PM2.5. Retrievals of smoke from GOES satellites are used for verification of smoke predictions. Retrievals of dust from MODIS are used for verification of dust predictions.

In summary, observations are the basis for the emissions inputs for NAQFC, they are critical for evaluation of performance of NAQFC predictions, and furthermore they are used in real-time testing of bias correction of PM2.5 predictions, as we continue to work on improving modeling and emissions important for representation of PM2.5.

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