Sophie Cousineau

The FireWork air quality forecast system with near-real-time biomass burning emissions: Recent developments and evaluation of performance for the 2015 North American wildfire season

ABSTRACT Environment and Climate Change Canada’s FireWork air quality (AQ) forecast system for North America with near-real-time biomass burning emissions has been running experimentally during the Canadian wildfire season since 2013. The system runs twice per day with model initializations at 00 UTC and 12 UTC, and produces numerical AQ forecast guidance with 48-hr lead time. In this work we describe the FireWork system, which incorporates near-real-time biomass burning emissions based on the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System (CWFIS) as an input to the operational Regional Air Quality Deterministic Prediction System (RAQDPS). To demonstrate the capability of the system we analyzed two forecast periods in 2015 (June 2–July 15, and August 15–31) when fire activity was high, and observed fire-smoke-impacted areas in western Canada and the western United States. Modeled PM2.5 surface concentrations were compared with surface measurements and benchmarked with results from the operational RAQDPS, which did not consider near-real-time biomass burning emissions. Model performance statistics showed that FireWork outperformed RAQDPS with improvements in forecast hourly PM2.5 across the region; the results were especially significant for stations near the path of fire plume trajectories. Although the hourly PM2.5 concentrations predicted by FireWork still displayed bias for areas with active fires for these two periods (mean bias [MB] of –7.3 µg m−3 and 3.1 µg m−3), it showed better forecast skill than the RAQDPS (MB of –11.7 µg m−3 and –5.8 µg m−3) and demonstrated a greater ability to capture temporal variability of episodic PM2.5 events (correlation coefficient values of 0.50 and 0.69 for FireWork compared to 0.03 and 0.11 for RAQDPS). A categorical forecast comparison based on an hourly PM2.5 threshold of 30 µg m−3 also showed improved scores for probability of detection (POD), critical success index (CSI), and false alarm rate (FAR). Implications: Smoke from wildfires can have a large impact on regional air quality (AQ) and can expose populations to elevated pollution levels. Environment and Climate Change Canada has been producing operational air quality forecasts for all of Canada since 2009 and is now working to include near-real-time wildfire emissions (NRTWE) in its operational AQ forecasting system. An experimental forecast system named FireWork, which includes NRTWE, has been undergoing testing and evaluation since 2013. A performance analysis of FireWork forecasts for the 2015 wildfire season shows that FireWork provides significant improvements to surface PM2.5 forecasts and valuable guidance to regional forecasters and first responders.

Comprehensive Surface-Based Performance Evaluation of a Size- and Composition-Resolved Regional Particulate-Matter Model for a One-Year Simulation

A comprehensive performance evaluation has been carried out for the first annual simulation made with AURAMS, a size- and composition-resolved, off-line, regional particulate-matter (PM) modelling system. The year simulated was 2002, the modelling domain covered most of North America, and the horizontal grid size was 42 km. The large evaluation data set consisted of filter-based and con- tinuous surface air-chemistry measurements made by five Canadian and U.S. net- works and precipitation-chemistry measurements made by seven Canadian and U.S. networks. Completeness criteria were used to exclude stations with incomplete records, and units conversions were performed to maximize uniformity and com- parability. Quantities used in the performance evaluation included annual air con- centrations of SO2, NO2, O3, HNO3, PM2.5, PM10, PM2.5-SO4, PM2.5-NO3, PM2.5-NH4, PM2.5-CM, PM2.5-EC, and PM2.5-TOM, and annual concentrations in precipitation of SO4 = , NO3 - , and NH4 + . The extensive evaluation has allowed inferences about factors contributing to some model weaknesses.

Current and Future Developments in Numerical Air Quality Forecasting in Canada

Environment Canada produces twice-daily, 48-h operational air quality (AQ) forecasts for a domain covering North America. At the core of the forecast system is the GEM-MACH model, an on-line coupled meteorology and chemistry model that includes a representation of gas-phase, aqueous-phase, and heterogeneous chemistry and a number of particulate matter (PM) processes. In this paper, a brief description of the recent changes to the Canadian National AQ Forecasting System is given, followed by a discussion of future development plans. The objective for the next version of the system is to deliver improved AQ forecasts by improving initial and boundary conditions and representations of emissions and processes.

Modelling Regional Air Quality in the Canadian Arctic: Impact of North American Wildfire and Arctic Shipping Emissions

Air quality model simulations were carried out for the 2010 northern shipping season over a regional Arctic domain. Preliminary evaluation of the base model simulation shows that the model is able to capture the general trends of the observed ambient ozone and PM2.5 in the northern region. Analysis on relative contributions from North American wildfires and Arctic marine/shipping to ambient concentrations of various pollutants and their depositions in the Canadian Arctic and northern regions was conducted.

A New Canadian Modeling Platform for Policy Emission Reduction Scenarios: Year 2006 Configuration

The Air Quality Modeling and Application Section of Environment Canada (EC) is transitioning its policy modeling platform from base year 2002 to base year 2006. The motivation behind this transition is to take into account the latest technological and scientific information upon which sound advice can be given to policy management. The latest data available at the beginning of the transition process includes 2006 emission inventories, 2006 meteorology inputs, and latest tools such as the meteorological and chemical transport models, interpolators, etc. The development of such a modeling platform encompasses the meteorology generation and interpolation, the emissions inventory and processing tools, post-processing of the modeling outputs, preparation of inputs for health and environmental benefits valuation models as well as the performance verification. The new system also addresses some of the technical weaknesses of the previous platform such as portability for different users, domain nesting capabilities, flexibility in emissions scenarios, more robust post-processing tools and better system diagnostic tools (reporting, error traceability). These changes will facilitate easier exchange of scenario configurations, data and results, allowing for improved coordination and collaboration between EC modelers. This paper provides an overview of the new policy modeling platform. It first outlines the general model configuration follow by preliminary results of the 2006 annual base case evaluation.

Modelling Regional Aerosols: Impact of Cloud Processing on Gases and Particles over Eastern North America and in Its Outflow During ICARTT 2004

A regional aerosol model, AURAMS (A Unified Regional Air-quality Modelling System), is used to simulate gases and aerosols over eastern North America for the ICARTT field campaign period during summer 2004. The model performance is evaluated against both ground-based and airborne observations during the field campaign. A model sensitivity study is used to assess the impact of cloud processing on the aerosol characteristics in the air masses over eastern North America and its outflow to the North Atlantic during the study period.