scholarly journals Meteorological and Back Trajectory Modeling for the Rocky Mountain Atmospheric Nitrogen and Sulfur Study II

2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristi A. Gebhart ◽  
William C. Malm ◽  
Marco A. Rodriguez ◽  
Michael G. Barna ◽  
Bret A. Schichtel ◽  
...  

The Rocky Mountain Atmospheric Nitrogen and Sulfur (RoMANS II) study with field operations during November 2008 through November 2009 was designed to evaluate the composition and sources of reactive nitrogen in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, USA. As part of RoMANS II, a mesoscale meteorological model was utilized to provide input for back trajectory and chemical transport models. Evaluation of the model's ability to capture important transport patterns in this region of complex terrain is discussed. Previous source-receptor studies of nitrogen in this region are also reviewed. Finally, results of several back trajectory analyses for RoMANS II are presented. The trajectory mass balance (TrMB) model, a receptor-based linear regression technique, was used to estimate mean source attributions of airborne ammonia concentrations during RoMANS II. Though ammonia concentrations are usually higher when there is transport from the east, the TrMB model estimates that, on average, areas to the west contribute a larger mean fraction of the ammonia. Possible reasons for this are discussed and include the greater frequency of westerly versus easterly winds, the possibility that ammonia is transported long distances as ammonium nitrate, and the difficulty of correctly modeling the transport winds in this area.

Author(s):  
Scott D. Chambers ◽  
Elise-Andree Guérette ◽  
Khalia Monk ◽  
Alan D. Griffiths ◽  
Yang Zhang ◽  
...  

We propose a new technique to prepare statistically-robust benchmarking data for evaluating chemical transport model meteorology and air quality parameters within the urban boundary layer. The approach employs atmospheric class-typing, using nocturnal radon measurements to assign atmospheric mixing classes, and can be applied temporally (across the diurnal cycle), or spatially (to create angular distributions of pollutants as a top-down constraint on emissions inventories). In this study only a short (<1-month) campaign is used, but grouping of the relative mixing classes based on nocturnal mean radon concentrations can be adjusted according to dataset length (i.e., number of days per category), or desired range of within-class variability. Calculating hourly distributions of observed and simulated values across diurnal composites of each class-type helps to: (i) bridge the gap between scales of simulation and observation, (ii) represent the variability associated with spatial and temporal heterogeneity of sources and meteorology without being confused by it, and (iii) provide an objective way to group results over whole diurnal cycles that separates ‘natural complicating factors’ (synoptic non-stationarity, rainfall, mesoscale motions, extreme stability, etc.) from problems related to parameterizations, or between-model differences. We demonstrate the utility of this technique using output from a suite of seven contemporary regional forecast and chemical transport models. Meteorological model skill varied across the diurnal cycle for all models, with an additional dependence on the atmospheric mixing class that varied between models. From an air quality perspective, model skill regarding the duration and magnitude of morning and evening “rush hour” pollution events varied strongly as a function of mixing class. Model skill was typically the lowest when public exposure would have been the highest, which has important implications for assessing potential health risks in new and rapidly evolving urban regions, and also for prioritizing the areas of model improvement for future applications.


2011 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 621-633 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristi A. Gebhart ◽  
Bret A. Schichtel ◽  
William C. Malm ◽  
Michael G. Barna ◽  
Marco A. Rodriguez ◽  
...  

Atmosphere ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Chambers ◽  
Elise-Andree Guérette ◽  
Khalia Monk ◽  
Alan Griffiths ◽  
Yang Zhang ◽  
...  

We propose a new technique to prepare statistically-robust benchmarking data for evaluating chemical transport model meteorology and air quality parameters within the urban boundary layer. The approach employs atmospheric class-typing, using nocturnal radon measurements to assign atmospheric mixing classes, and can be applied temporally (across the diurnal cycle), or spatially (to create angular distributions of pollutants as a top-down constraint on emissions inventories). In this study only a short (<1-month) campaign is used, but grouping of the relative mixing classes based on nocturnal mean radon concentrations can be adjusted according to dataset length (i.e., number of days per category), or desired range of within-class variability. Calculating hourly distributions of observed and simulated values across diurnal composites of each class-type helps to: (i) bridge the gap between scales of simulation and observation, (ii) represent the variability associated with spatial and temporal heterogeneity of sources and meteorology without being confused by it, and (iii) provide an objective way to group results over whole diurnal cycles that separates ‘natural complicating factors’ (synoptic non-stationarity, rainfall, mesoscale motions, extreme stability, etc.) from problems related to parameterizations, or between-model differences. We demonstrate the utility of this technique using output from a suite of seven contemporary regional forecast and chemical transport models. Meteorological model skill varied across the diurnal cycle for all models, with an additional dependence on the atmospheric mixing class that varied between models. From an air quality perspective, model skill regarding the duration and magnitude of morning and evening “rush hour” pollution events varied strongly as a function of mixing class. Model skill was typically the lowest when public exposure would have been the highest, which has important implications for assessing potential health risks in new and rapidly evolving urban regions, and also for prioritizing the areas of model improvement for future applications.


2019 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 203-218
Author(s):  
I.N. Kusnetsova ◽  
◽  
I.U. Shalygina ◽  
M.I. Nahaev ◽  
U.V. Tkacheva ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 113
Author(s):  
Antonio-Juan Collados-Lara ◽  
Steven R. Fassnacht ◽  
Eulogio Pardo-Igúzquiza ◽  
David Pulido-Velazquez

There is necessity of considering air temperature to simulate the hydrology and management within water resources systems. In many cases, a big issue is considering the scarcity of data due to poor accessibility and limited funds. This paper proposes a methodology to obtain high resolution air temperature fields by combining scarce point measurements with elevation data and land surface temperature (LST) data from remote sensing. The available station data (SNOTEL stations) are sparse at Rocky Mountain National Park, necessitating the inclusion of correlated and well-sampled variables to assess the spatial variability of air temperature. Different geostatistical approaches and weighted solutions thereof were employed to obtain air temperature fields. These estimates were compared with two relatively direct solutions, the LST (MODIS) and a lapse rate-based interpolation technique. The methodology was evaluated using data from different seasons. The performance of the techniques was assessed through a cross validation experiment. In both cases, the weighted kriging with external drift solution (considering LST and elevation) showed the best results, with a mean squared error of 3.7 and 3.6 °C2 for the application and validation, respectively.


2021 ◽  
Vol 248 ◽  
pp. 118022
Author(s):  
Min Xu ◽  
Jianbing Jin ◽  
Guoqiang Wang ◽  
Arjo Segers ◽  
Tuo Deng ◽  
...  

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