Juan L. Pérez

Advanced Numerical Methods for Complex Environmental Models: Needs and Availability

The understanding of lakes physical dynamics is crucial to provide scientifically credible information foron lakes ecosystem management. We show how the combination of in-situ dataobservations, remote sensing observationsdata and three15 dimensional hydrodynamic (3D) numerical simulations is capable of deliveringresolving various spatio-temporal scales involved in lakes dynamics. This combination is achieved through data assimilation (DA) and uncertainty quantification. In this study, we presentdevelop a flexible framework forby incorporating DA into lakes three-dimensional3D hydrodynamic lake models. Using an Ensemble Kalman Filter, our approach accounts for model and observational uncertainties. We demonstrate the framework by assimilating in-situ and satellite remote sensing temperature data into a three-dimensional3Dl hydrodynamic 20 model of Lake Geneva. Results show that DA effectively improves model performance over a broad range of spatio-temporal scales and physical processes. Overall, temperature errors have been reduced by 54 %. With a localization scheme, an ensemble size of 20 members is found to be sufficient to derive covariance matrices leading to satisfactory results. The entire framework has been developed for the constraintswith a goal of near real-time operational systems and near real-time operations (e.g. integration into meteolakes.ch). 25

Impacts of the 4.5 and 8.5 RCP global climate scenarios on urban meteorology and air quality

Climate change is expected to influence urban living conditions and challenge the ability of cities to adapt and mitigate climate change. This paper describes a new modelling system for climate change impact assessments on urban climate and air quality with feasible computational costs (the expected CPU time is too large for actual supercomputer platforms). The system takes the outputs from a global climate model, which are injected into a dynamical regional climate model (WRF-Chem) with the nested capability activated, with 25 km spatial resolution. In addition, the system uses a diagnostic meteorological model (CALMET) to produce urban detailed information (with 200 m spatial resolution) using this downscaling procedure. At the city level, a simplified chemical-transport model (based on CMAQ and using linear chemistry) is used to map the spatial distribution of the pollutants. The system is applied to five European cities: Madrid, Antwerp, Milan, Helsinki and London (Kensington-Chelsea area). The modelling system was used to simulate the climate and air quality for present year (2011) and future years (2030, 2050 and 2100) using 2011 emissions as control run, because we want to investigate the effects on the global climate on the actual (2011) cities. Effects on temperature, precipitation, and ozone are also considered. We compare the climate and air concentrations in future years 2030, 2050 and 2100 with the control year (2011). Comparison of simulations for present situation (using NNRP reanalysis 2011 data sets) shows acceptable agreement with measurements which give us strong confidence on the results for the RCP IPCC climate future simulations for 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios. Impacts of global climate on urban scale are showed for 2030, 2050 and 2100 for 4.5 and 8.5 RCP IPCC climate scenarios.Dynamical and diagnostic downscaling processes are properly combined.Two RCP scenarios are considered: 4.5 and 8.5.Present (2011) and future (2030, 2050 and 210) years are simulated.

An incinerator air quality impact assessment for metals, PAH, dioxins and furans by using the MM5-CMAQ-EMIMO atmospheric modelling system: Spain case study

In this paper, we show the implementation of a modified version of MM5-CMAQ for carrying out an air quality impact analysis for installing an incinerator in the Basque Country model domain (Spain). The modified CMAQ model (EPA USA, 2004) includes Poly-Chlorinated Dibenzop-Dioxins and Dibenzo-Furans (dioxins and furans). This model represents their congeners as divided between gaseous and aerosol forms that exchange mass based on theoretical coefficients for gas to particle portioning. The emission model EMIMO ? developed by UPM ? has been adapted to incorporate the three metals and the benzo(a)pyrene according to the EMEP annual emission inventory. In addition, the PCDD/F EMEP emission inventory has been incorporated into the EMIMO model to produce proper 1 hr and 1 km ? 1 km emission PCDD/F estimation. The emissions of the projected incinerator are incorporated by using the chimney technical parameters and the limit emission values (worst-case scenario) prescribed in the Directive/2000/76/CE.

A system for assessment of climatic air pollution levels in Bulgaria: description and first steps towards validation

The EC FP6 project CECILIA (http://www.cecilia-eu.org) aims at climate change impacts and vulnerability assessment in targeted areas of Central and Eastern Europe. Emphasis is given to regional climate change modeling at resolution of 10 km. The respective weather patterns influence local air quality. For its assessment EPA Models-3 (MM5, CMAQ, SMOKE) is used. The meteorological input is produced by the climatic version of ALADIN weather forecast system. TNO emission inventory for 2000 is exploited. The boundary conditions are extracted from 50-km runs over Europe made in Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. Calculations for the period 1991–2000 are performed, results presented.

Advanced results of the PM10 and PM2.5 winter 2003 episode by using MM5-CMAQ and WRF/CHEM models

During the winter of 2003 there was an special particulate episode over Germany The application of the MM5-CMAQ model (PSU/ NCAR/EPA, US) to simulate the high concentrations in PM10 and PM2.5 during a winter episode (2003) in Central Europe has been performed The selected period is January 15 – April 6, 2003 Values of daily mean concentrations up to 75 μgm−3 are found on average of several monitoring stations in Northern Germany Additionally WRF/CHEM (NOAA, USA) model has been applied In this contribution we have performed additional simulations to improve the results obtained in our contribution San Jose et al (2008) [5] We have run again both models but with changes in emission inventory and turbulence scheme for MM5-CMAQ In the case of WRF/CHEM much more changes have been performed: Lin et al (1983) microphysics scheme has been substituted by WSM 5-class single moment microphysics scheme (Hong et al 2004); Goddard radiation scheme has been substituted by Dudhia radiation scheme and FTUV photolysis model has been substituted by J-FAST photolysis model The results improve substantially the PM10 and PM2.5 patterns in both models The correlation coefficient for PM10 for 80 days simulation period and for daily averages has been increased up to 0.851 and in the case of PM2.5, it has been increased up to 0.674.

The use of MM5-CMAQ for an incinerator air quality impact assessment for metals, PAH, dioxins and furans: Spain case study

In this contribution we show the implementation of a modified version of MM5-CMAQ (Hutzell W.T., 2002) for carrying on an air quality impact analysis for installing an incinerator in the Basque Country Area (Spain). The modified CMAQ model (EPA USA, 2004) includes Poly-Chlorinated Dibenzo-p-Dioxins and Dibenzo-Furans (dioxins and furans). The model represents their cogeners as divided between gaseous and aerosol forms that exchange mass based on theoretical coefficients for gas to particle portioning. Modelled metals are included in CMAQ as part of the non-reactive aerosol component. Metals modelled are: As, Cd, Ni and Pb. In additional Benzo(a)pyrene (PAH) is also modelled. The model is implemented in a cluster platform in order to be used as a real-time air quality forecasting system by using the ON-OFF approach. The emissions of the projected incinerator in the ON run are incorporated by using the height of the chimney, the prescribed exit gas velocity, diameter of chimney and the limit emission values (worst scenario) prescribed in the Directive/2000/76/CE. The OFF run is done by using EMEP POP and PAH emission inventory. The system is mounted over one mother domain of 400 x 400 km with 9 km spatial resolution and two nesting levels: 100 km model domain with 3 km spatial resolution and 24 km with 1 km spatial resolution. All model domains have 23 vertical layers. The highest level is located at 100 mb. The architecture domain system is centered at the UTM coordinates assigned for the projected incinerator. EPER EU industrial emissions (May, 2004) of the surrounding large point industrial sources are used. Results are compared with the target values included in the proposal for a Directive of the European Parlament and of the Council (ENV 194 CODEC 439).

Comparison between different dynamical downscaling methods using WRF-Chem for urban applications: Madrid case study

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts is used to provide boundary conditions for the mesoscale model WRF-Chem that has been run over Europe with 23 km spatial resolution. We have used a full one-way nesting approach to produce simulations centred over the city of Madrid (Spain) with 4.6 km spatial resolution, 0.92 km spatial resolution and 0.184 km spatial resolution. In last level, we have run the CMAQ (full chemistry) model to produce chemical pollution data. This is called the control reference simulation. The simplified and faster downscaling procedure used in this experiment is the CALMET-CMAQL (linear chemistry) model. Both downscaling techniques are compared using meteorological and air pollution monitoring station. The comparison between both downscaling techniques shows that the CALMET-CMAQL model is much faster and computationally cheap; the results are good enough to consider this tool for climate purposes.

Advances on Real-Time Air Quality Forecasting Systems for Industrial Plants and Urban Areas by Using the MM5-CMAQ-EMIMO

The system MM5-CMAQ-EMIMO-MICROSYS produces reliable air quality forecasts for urban areas with street level detail over the Internet. In this contribution we will show the special example applied to Las Palmas (Canary Islands, Spain). Additionally, the MM5-CMAQ-EMIMO has been used to know the air quality impact of several industrial plants such as combined cycle power and cement plants. Additional runs are performed in parallel without the emissions of the different chimneys forming the industrial complex (up to 5 scenarios in our experiences for electric companies and cement industrial plants). The differences ON1-OFF and so on, show the impact in time and space of the different industrial sources. The system uses sophisticated cluster technology to take advantage of distributed and shared memory machines in order to perform the parallel runs in an efficient and optimal way since the process should operate under daily basis. We will show the methodology and results of these applications also in two industrial complex in the surrounding area of Madrid City.

Simulation of an Extreme Air Pollution Episode in the City of Stara Zagora, Bulgaria

Several industrial hot spots exist in Bulgaria and detail study of every one is worth to be done, but often incidents with high pollution levels over usually relatively clean populated areas cause big political concern. Stara Zagora is one of the biggest towns in Bulgaria (300 000 inhabitants) located in the middle of the country. In the summer of 2004, two high level SO 2 pollution events happened causing big public complains and even political and judicial consequences. Analogous events happened in 2005, too. All this requires appropriate measures to be taken by local authorities, first of all a suitable monitoring and forecasting system to be set. For the moment such system does not exist; only ambient air concentrations are measured in several points. This is not sufficient neither to predict nor even to explain the cases. As far as the mathematical modeling is alternative and supplementing tool according to the EU Framework Directive on Air Quality (96/62/ES) and its daughter directives (see, [5,6,7,16]), an attempt to simulate one of these events was done applying one of the most comprehensive and up-to-science modeling tools, mainly the US EPA Model-3 system.

The Use of MM5-CMAQ Air Pollution Modelling System for Real-Time and Forecasted Air Quality Impact of Industrial Emissions

The sophistication of air pollution modeling systems has continued to increase in the last decade. Nowadays, the complex numerical mesoscale meteorological and chemical dispersion models have become very robust tools which are quite sensitive to small changes in the atmospheric process. The use of these tools as air quality management systems is becoming more and more common at urban and regional levels in many parts of the world. In this contribution we have applied the MM5-CMAQ modeling system in the framework of OPANA V3 with emission data sets produced by EMIMO to evaluate the capability of the system to be used as a tool to determine in realtime and forecasting mode the individual impact of five different virtual industrial sources located at the south-east direction of Madrid (Spain) city. The system has been developed for two different scenarios for each single industrial source: OFF (complete switching off the emissions, 100%) and OFF50 (reducing the expected emissions from each single industrial source by 50%). The simulations are carried out over 120 hours, and the emission reduction strategies are applied for the last 48 hours in a way that when the system is used in real-time and forecasting mode in daily operational use, the information is ready to be applied 12 – 20 hours before the hour 96 of the simulation. So, implementation of the emission reduction strategy — in case of need — can be done for such a single industrial plant in such a period of time. The results of 11 simulations (ON + 5xOFF + 5xOFF50) are analyzed by developing a robust post-processing tool which will report us about the time, location (grid cell) and eventually the industrial plant (or plants) which should apply the reported emission reduction scenarios. The modeling system has been mounted with two domains for MM5 with 81 and 27 km spatial resolutions and also with other two domains with 9 km and 3 km spatial resolutions. The CMAQ model has been mounted according to MM5 architecture just for the domains with 9 and 3 km spatial resolutions. Analysis of the air quality impact of industrial sources is prepared for the domains with 9 km and 3 km spatial resolutions. The system has proved to be robust and sensitive enough to be used in a reliable way. The computer time for all exercises is about 140 hours on a PIV-3,06 Ghz. In real operational mode, it can be reduced to 14 hours or less (daily operation) with a 20 PC cluster.