Transitioning CMAQ for NWS Operational AQ Forecasting

1. Transitioning CMAQ for NWS Operational AQ Forecasting Jeff McQueen*, Pius Lee*, Marina Tsildulko*, G. DiMego*, B. Katz* R. Mathur,T. Otte, J. Pleim, J. Young, G. Pouliout, D. Wong, K. Schere(NOAA/ARL/ASMD & EPA) P. Davidson(NWS/OST) *NOAA/NCEP Environmental Modeling Center

2. Operational Requirements • Driven by NCEP Operational Meteorological Model (Eta-12) • I/O Formats: • Only machine binary, GRIB and BUFR, disk space limitations • Time Requirement: • 12 Z 48 hour forecast available by 17:25 Z (1:25 pm EDT) • 06 Z 48 hour forecast available by 13:00 Z ( 9 am EDT) • 65 IBM Power 4 procs available • 12 Z start after Eta is complete (14:30 Z) • Robustness: • Thoroughly tested & evaluated with retrospective and real-time experimental runs • Available to NWS Gateway, NDGD: 99% reliability, 24x7 NCEP support • Accuracy: 90% exceedence hit rate

3. Air Quality Forecasting Configuration for Operational Implementation • NE Domain: 12 km 166x142x22 top at 100 mb • 48 hour forecasts of ozone (O3) : 06 and 12 UTC runs • Eta-Post corrections to Land-Use, vertical temperature interp • Updated emissions inventories: • Project 2002 point and area source inventories for 2004 • Updated Mobile Emissions using MOBILE6 inventory • Simplified Temperature dependency on mobile emissions • Use of GFS ozone for upper Lateral Boundary Conditions above 6 km • “ Cleaner” chemistry lateral boundary conditions below • 6 hour cycling • Minimum Kz in CMAQ PBL set over rural areas to increase mixing and help reduce O3 overprediction at night (initiated on 7/22/04) • Real-time Verification • BUFR O3 and CMAQ output evaluated with VSDB/FVS system

4. Air Quality ForecastingExperimental Expanded Domain Configuration • Eastern US : 48 hour forecasts of ozone (O3) : 06 and 12 UTC runs • 3x expanded domain (East of Rockies, 268x259x22) run in parallel • Minimum Kz mixing • Transformed grid to reduce interpolation error bet. Eta, emissions processor and CMAQ • Expanded emissions inventories • GFS ozone as upper Lateral Boundary Conditions above 6 km • “ Cleaner” chemistry lateral boundary conditions below (Initiated on 8/3/04) • Additional processors (~65) used • 12 z Available by 17:30 UTC

5. Air Quality ForecastingResearch Aerosol Domain Configuration • Eastern US : 24 hour forecasts of O3 & Aerosols: 12 UTC run only • Same system as operational except • 3x expanded domain (East of Rockies) run • Began July 16, 12z w/ 24 hr cycling • Expanded emissions inventories • GFS ozone as upper Lateral Boundary Conditions above top 6 km • “ Cleaner” chemistry lateral boundary conditions below • 33 processors on Development Machine (less (less reliability, 8x5) • Available by 21 UTC

6. 00 06 12 18 00 06 12 18 00 06 12 18 00 06 12 18 Forecast: eta premaq cmaq 6h GRIB output to TOC 48h soil ozone 48h 6h 6h 48h 48h 6h 6h 20 August 2003: NCO parallel implemented 6h Cycling 48h

7. Land-use Coupling to Eta With wrong land-use AIRNOW Ozone obs With correct land-use

8. Eta-Post Temperature Interpolation Error

9. Current Physics Coupling w/ NCEP Eta-12

10. Air Quality Forecasting2004 User Access • NE Domain (1x, O3) : • Public: NDGD and TOC ftp server • Surface ozone predictions • State Forecasters: HPC web site • Sfc O3 & met plots • Daily (2pm) conference calls • HPC forecasters trained • Focus group: EMC web site • Expanded met plots (pbl hgt, sw rad, ventilation index….) • Sfc & upper level O3 and precurser plots (NOx, NOy,CO,SO2) • ICARRT web page: sfc & UL ozone • Experimental Domain (3x, O3): • Focus group only: EMC Web page

11. Products Predicted Sfc Ozone (1, 8h, max) Eta PB L hgt Eta cloud cover

12. Air Quality Forecasting2004 Verification (1x and 3x) • NCEP EMC FVS System : • 1 and 8 hour O3 averages • RMSE, Bias, STD, correlation coefficients Time series by fhr and day, subregion • using EPA AIRNOW O3 network began 7/12/04 • FHO contingency exceedence stats (POD, FAR, threat scores) • Began 8/1/04 • NWS/MDL • Daily Spatial obs vs predicted exceedence maps • Contingency exceedence stats since June 1 • NOAA/OAR/EPA • Retrospective evaluations (8/12-19, 2003) • RT:Similar Stats except stations averaged over CMAQ grid points • ICARRT web page: sfc & UL ozone timeseries vs observations

13. Runs RMSE (ppb) MAGE MNGE MNB MFB MB NMB NME R NO GFS 15.37 11.81 21.85 11.76 7.96 4.88 8.15 19.71 0.64 W/ GFS 16.21 12.59 23.45 14.00 9.75 6.10 10.17 21.00 0.62 W/ GFS Mobile6 New pt/area 14.50 Final 2004 11.19 21.00 11.91 8.36 4.69 7.83 18.68 0.64 LU_flawd (2003 config) 22.84 2003 16.0 26.76 30.88 0.62 LU correct 16.42 7.45 12.43 21.04 0.63 NE DOMAIN Retrospective EvaluationMaximum 1 Hr ozone Errors (Aug.12-19,2003)

14. Eta Real-Time VerificationAugust 2004 Temperature Downward SW

15. Real-Time VerificationEMC FVS time-series binned by FHR Bias RMSE

16. Real-Time VerificationEMC FVS 36 h forecast time-series by day RMSE Bias

17. Real-Time VerificationEMC FVS forecast by sub-region BIAS 1x vs 3x NE, SE US BIAS 1x vs 3x E. Canada, APL US

18. Real-Time VerificationNWS MDL EvaluationPredicted vs Obs Exceedence

19. Summary • NCEP Currently running 3 systems: • Operational NE (1x) • Experimental (3x) • Research Aerosols (3x) • Retrospective and real-time results show improvements from 2003: • Mean daytime bias reduced from ~17 to 5 ppb • Mean daytime rmse reduced from 22.8 to 14.5 ppb • However, still general overprediction in day, poorer performance at night

20. FY05 Planned NCEP Runs • Production (2x/day to 48 hrs) • Operational:Eastern U.S.(3x) Eta CMAQ-Ozone pending evaluation • Experimental:CONUS Eta/WRF CMAQ • Improved Coupling w/ Radiation •  Development/Research • Eastern U.S. CMAQ w/WRF coupling • Eastern U.S. retrospective aerosol runs

21. BACKUPS

22. NE DOMAIN Retros. Evaluation1 Hr Avg ozone Errors (8/12-19, 2003) RMSE Mean Bias

23. ICARRT Evaluation