References

ACP

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics

ACP

1680-7324

Copernicus GmbH

Göttingen, Germany

10.5194/acp-10-11805-2010

Decadal regional air quality simulations over Europe in present climate: near surface ozone sensitivity to external meteorological forcing

Katragkou

¹ Zanis

² Tegoulias

² Melas

¹ Kioutsioukis

¹ Krüger

B. C.

³ Huszar

⁴ Halenka

⁴ Rauscher

⁵

Laboratory of Atmospheric Physics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

Department of Meteorology and Climatology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

Institute of Meteorology, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria

Department of Meteorology and Environment Protection, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

Earth System Physics Section, The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Trieste, Italy

13 12 2010

10 23 11805 11821

This is an open-access article ditributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

This article is available from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/10/11805/2010/acp-10-11805-2010.html

The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/10/11805/2010/acp-10-11805-2010.pdf

Regional climate-air quality decadal simulations over Europe were carried out with the RegCM3/CAMx modeling system for the time slice 1991–2000, in order to study the impact of different meteorological forcing on surface ozone. The RegCM3 regional climate model was firstly constrained by the ERA40 reanalysis dataset which is considered as an experiment with perfect meteorological boundary conditions and then it was constrained by the global circulation model ECHAM5. A number of meteorological parameters were examined including the 500 mb geopotential height, solar radiation, temperature, cloud liquid water path, planetary boundary layer height and surface wind. The different RegCM meteorological forcing resulted in changes of near surface ozone over Europe ranging between ± 4 ppb for winter and summer. The area showing the greatest sensitivity in O<sub>3</sub> during winter is central and southern Europe while in summer central north continental Europe. The different meteorological forcing impacts on the atmospheric circulation, which in turn affects cloudiness and solar radiation, temperature, wind patterns and the meteorology depended biogenic emissions. For comparison reasons, the impact of chemical boundary conditions on surface ozone was additionally examined with a series of sensitivity studies, indicating that surface ozone changes are comparable to those caused by the different meteorological forcing. These findings suggest that, when it comes to regional climate-air quality simulations, the selection of external meteorological forcing can be as important as the selection of adequate chemical lateral boundary conditions.

References 1

Andreani-Aksoyoglu, S., Keller, J., Prévôt, A. S. H., Baltensperger, U., and Flemming, J.: Secondary aerosols in Switzerland and northern Italy: Modeling and sensitivity studies for summer 2003, J. Geophys. Res., 113(6), D06303, doi:10.1029/2007JD009053, 2008.

Baertsch-Ritter, N., Keller, J., Dommen, J., and Prévôt, A. S. H.: Effects of various meteorological conditions and spatial emissionresolutions on the ozone concentration and ROG/NO<sub>x</sub> limitationin the Milan area (I), Atmos. Chem. Phys., 4, 423–438, doi:10.5194/acp-4-423-2004, 2004.

Bloomfield, P., Royle, J. A., Steinberg, L. J., and Yang, Q.: Accounting for meteorological effects in measuring urban ozone levels and trends, Atmos. Environ., 30(17), 3067–3077, 1996.

Broennimann, S. and Neu, U.: Weekend-weekday differences of near-surface ozone concentrations in Switzerland for different meteorological conditions, Atmos. Environ., 31(8), 1127–1135, 1997.

Crutzen, P. J.: Tropospheric ozone: An overview, in "Tropospheric Ozone", edited by: Isaksen, I. S. A., D. Reidel Publ. Co., 3–32, 1988.

Davies, T. D., Kelly, P. M., Low, P. S., and Pierce, C. E.: Surface ozone concentrations in Europe: links with regional-scale atmospheric circulation, J. Geophys. Res., 97(9), 819–832, 1992.

Davis, J. M., Eder, B. K., Nychka, D., and Yang, Q.: Modeling the effects of meteorology on ozone in Houston using cluster analysis and generalized additive models, Atmos. Environ., 32(14/15), 2505–2520, 1998.

Dawson, J. P., Adams, P. J., and Pandis, S. N.: Sensitivity of ozone to summertime climate in the eastern USA: A modeling case study, Atmos. Environ., 41, 1494–1511, 2007.

Dawson, J. P., Racherla, P. N., Lynn, B. H., Adams, P. J., and Pandis, S. N.: Impacts of climate change on regional and urban air quality in the eastern United States: Role of meteorology, J. Geophys. Res., 114, D05308, doi:10.1029/2008JD009849, 2009.

Dickinson, R., Henderson-Sellers, A., and Kennedy, P. J.: Biosphere-Atmosphere Transfer Scheme, BATS: version1E as coupled to the NCAR Community Climate Model, NCAR Technical Note No NCAR/TN-387+STR, Boulder, CO, 72 pp, (available from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, P.O. Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80307), 1993.

Diffenbaugh, N.S., Pal, J.S., Trapp, R.J., Giorgi, F.: Fine scale processes regulate the response of extreme events to global climate change. In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 102, pp. 15774–15778, 2005.

Dutilleul P.: Modifying the t Test for Assessing the Correlation Between Two Spatial Processes, Biometrics, 49, 305–314, 1993.

ENVIRON, CAMx User's Guide, Comprehensive Air Quality model with Extentions, version 4.40, www.camx.com, 2006.

Fiore, A. M., Horowitz, L. W., Purves, D. W., Levy, H., Evans, M. J., Wang, Y., Li, Q., and Yantosca, R. M.: Evaluating the contribution of changes in isoprene emissions to surface ozone trends over the eastern United States, J. Geophys. Res., 110, D12303, doi:10.1029/2004JD005485, 2005.

Francisco, R. V., Argete, J., Giorgi, F., Pal, J., Bi, X., and Gutowski, W. J.: Regional model simulation of summer rainfall over the Philippines, Theor. Appl. Climatol., 86, 215–227, 2006.

Fritsch, J. M. and Chappell, C. F.: Numerical prediction of convectively driven mesoscale pressure systems, Part I: Convective parameterization, J. Atmos. Sci., 37, 1722–1733, 1980.

Fuhrer, J. and Booker, F.: Ecological issues related to ozone: agricultural issues, Environ. Int. 29(2–3), 141–154, 2003.

Gao, X., Pal, J. S., and Giorgi, F.: Projected changes in mean and extreme precipitation over the Mediterranean region from high resolution double nested RCM simulations, Geophys. Res. Lett. 33, L03706, 2006.

Giorgi, F., Marinucci, M. R., and Visconti, G.: A 2XCO2 climate change scenario over Europe generated using a limited area model nested in a general circulation model, II: climate change scnario. J. Geophys. Res., 97, 10028–19911, 1992.

Giorgi, F., Bates, G. T., and Nieman, S. J.: The multi-year surface climatology of a regional atmospheric model over the western United States, J. Climate 6, 75–95, 1993a.

Giorgi, F., Marinucci, M. R., Bates, G. T., and DeCanio: G. Development of a second generation regional climate model (RegCM2), Part I: boundary layer and radiative transfer processes, Mon Weather Rev., 121, 2794–2813, 1993b.

Giorgi, F. and Mearns, L. O.: Introduction to special section: regional climate modelling revisited, J. Geophys. Res., 104, 6335–6352, 1999.

Giorgi, F., Bi, X., and Qian, Y.: Direct radiative forcing and regional climatic effects of anthropogenic aerosols over East Asia, A regional coupled climate-chemistry/aerosol model study, J. Geophys. Res., 107, 4439, doi:10.1029/2001JD001066, 2002.

Giorgi, F., Bi, X., and Qian, Y.: Indirect vs. direct effects of anthropogenic sulfate on the climate of East Asia as simulated with a regional coupled climate-chemistry/aerosol model, Clim. Change, 58, 345–376, 2003.

Giorgi, F., X, Bi., and Pal, J.: Mean, interannual variability and trends in a regional climate change experiment over Europe, II: present day climate (1960–1990), Clim. Dynam., 22, 733–756, 2004a.

Giorgi, F., Bi, X., and Pal, J.: Mean, interannual variability and trends in a regional climate change experiment over Europe, I: climate change scenarios (2071–2100), Clim. Dynam., 23, 839–858, 2004b.

Giorgi, F., Pal, J. S., Bi, X., Sloan, L., Elguindi, N., and Solmon, F.: Introduction to the TAC special issue: The RegCNET network, Theor. Appl. Climatol., 86, 1–4, 2006.

Grell, G. A.: Prognostic evaluation of assumptions used by cumulus parametrizations, Mon. Weather Rev., 121, 764-787, 1993.

Grell, G. A., Dudhia, J., and Stauer, D. R.: A description of the fifth-generation penn state/ncar mesoscale model (mm5). Technical report NCAR/TN-398+STR, National Center for Atmospheric Research, 1994.

Guenther, A. B., Zimmermann, P. C., Harley, R., Monson, R. K., and Fall, R.: Isoprene and monoterpene emission rate variability: model evaluations and sensitivity analyses, J. Geophys. Res., 98, 12609–12617, 1993.

Hauglustaine, D. A., Lathiere, J., Szopa, S., and Folberth, G. A.: Future tropospheric ozone simulated with a climate-chemistry biosphere model, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L24807, doi:10.1029/2005GL024031, 2005.

Hedegaard, G. B., Brandt, J., Christensen, J. H., Frohn, L. M., Geels, C., Hansen, K. M., and Stendel, M.: Impacts of climate change on air pollution levels in the Northern Hemisphere with special focus on Europe and the Arctic, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 8, 3337–3367, doi:10.5194/acp-8-3337-2008, 2008.

Hegarty J., Mao, H., and Talbot, R.: Synoptic controls on summertime surface ozone in the northeastern United States, J. Geophys. Res., 112, D14306, doi:10.1029/2006JD008170, 2007.

Hewitt, C. D. and Griggs, D. J.: Ensembles-based predictions of climate changes and their impacts, EOS 85:566, 2004.

Hirakuchi, H. and Giorgi, F.: Multi year present day and 2XCO2 simulations of monsoon-dominated climate over Eastern Asia and Japan with a regional climate model nested in a general circulation model, J. Geophys. Res., 100, 21105–21126, 1995.

Hostetler, S. W., Giorgi, F., Bates, G. T., and Bartlein, P. J.: The role of lake-atmosphere feedbacks in sustaining paleolakes Bonneville and Lahontan 18,000 years ago, Science, 263, 665–668, 1994.

Im, E.-S., Park, E.-H., Kwon, W.-T., and Giorgi, F.: Present climate simulation over Korea with a regional climate model using a one-way double-nested system, Theor. Appl. Climatol., 86, 187–200, 2006.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis, 996 pp., Cambridge Univ. Press, New York, 2007.

Ito, A., Sillman, S., and Penner, J. E.: Global chemical transport model study of ozone response to changes in chemical kinetics and biogenic volatile organic compounds emissions due to increasing temperatures: Sensitivities to isoprene nitrate chemistry and grid resolution, J. Geophys. Res., 114, D09301, doi:10.1029/2008JD011254, 2009.

Jacob, D. J. and Winner, D. A.: Effect of climate change on air quality, Atmos. Environ., 43(1), 51–63, 2009.

Kalabokas, P. D., Mihalopoulos, N., Ellul, R., Kleanthous, S., and Repapis, C. C.: An investigation of the meteorological and photochemical factors influencing the background rural and marine surface ozone levels in the Central and Eastern Mediterranean, Atmos. Environ., 42, 7894–7906, doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2008.07.009, 2008.

Khalid, I. A.-W. and Samson, P. J.: Preliminary sensitivity analysis of Urban Airshed Model simulations to temporal and spatial availability of boundary layer wind measurements, Atmos. Environ., 30(12), 2027–2042, 1996.

Kiehl, J. T., Hack, J. J., Bonan, G. B., Boville, B. A., Breigleb, B. P., Williamson, D., and Rasch, P.: Description of the ncar community climate model (ccm3), Tech. Rep. NCAR/TN-420+STR, National Center for Atmospheric Research, 1996.

Krüger B. C, Katragkou, E., Tegoulias, I., Zanis, P., Melas, D., Coppola, E., Rauscher, S., Huszar, P., and Halenka, T.: Regional photochemical model calculations for Europe concerning ozone levels in a changing climate, Quarterly Journal of the Hungarian Meteorological Service, 112(3–4), 285–300, 2008.

von Kuhlmann, R., Lawrence, M. G., Pöschl, U., and Crutzen, P. J.: Sensitivities in global scale modeling of isoprene, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 4, 1–17, doi:10.5194/acp-4-1-2004, 2004.

Lee, S.-M., Princevac, M., Mitsutomi, S., and Cassmassi, J.: MM5 simulations for air quality modeling: An application to a coastal area with complex terrain Atmos. Environ., 43(2), 447–457, 2009.

Lei, W., de Foy, B., Zavala, M., Volkamer, R., and Molina, L. T.: Characterizing ozone production in the Mexico City Metropolitan Area: a case study using a chemical transport model, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 7, 1347–1366, doi:10.5194/acp-7-1347-2007, 2007.

Li, Q., Jacob, D. J., Bey, I., Palmer, P. I., Duncan, B. N., Field, B. D., Martin, R. V., Fiore, A. M., Yantosca, R. M., Parrish, D. D., Simmonds, P. G., and Oltmans, S. J.: Transatlantic transport of pollution and its effects on surface ozone in Europe and North America, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 107(13), 4-1-4-21, 2002.

Meehl, G. A., Covey, C., Delworth, T., Latif, M., McAvaney, B., Mitchell, J. F. B., Stouffer, R. J., and Taylor, K. E.: THE WCRP CMIP3 Multimodel Dataset: A New Era in Climate Change Research, B. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 88(9), 1383–1394, 2007.

Meleux, F., Solmon, F., and Giorgi, F.: Increase in summer European ozone amounts due to climate change, Atmos. Environ., 41(35), 7577–7587, 2007.

Nolte C. G., Gilliland, A. B., Hogrefe, C., and Mickley L. J.: Linking global to regional models to assess future climate impacts on surface ozone levels in the United States. J. Geophys. Res., 113, D14307, doi:10.1029/2007JD008497, 2008.

Pal, J. S., Small, E. E., and Eltahir, E. A. B.: Simulation of regional-scale water and energy budgets:Representation of subgrid cloud and precipitation processes within RegCM, J. Geophys. Res., 105(D24), 29579–29594, 2000.

Penkett, S. A.: Indications and causes of ozone increase in the troposphere, in "\textitThe changing atmosphere", edited by: Rowland, F. S. and Isaksen, I. S. A., J. Wiley & Sons, 91, 1988.

Racherla, P. N. and Adams, P. J.: Sensitivity of global tropospheric ozone and fine particulate matter concentrations to climate change, J. Geophys. Res., 111, D24103, doi:10.1029/2005JD006939, 2006.

Racherla, P. N. and Adams, P. J.: The response of surface ozone to climate change over the Eastern United States, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 8, 871–885, doi:10.5194/acp-8-871-2008, 2008.

Rauscher S. A., Coppola, E., Piani, C., and Giorgi, F.: Resolution effects on regional climate model simulations of seasonal precipitation over Europe, Clim. Dynam., 35(4), 685–711, doi:10.1007/s00382-009-0607-7, 2010.

Roeckner, E., Bäuml, G., Bonaventura, L., Brokopf, R., Esch, M., Giorgetta, M., Hagemann, S., Kirchner, I., Kornblueh, L., Manzini, E., Rhodin, A., Schlese, U., Schulzweida, U., and Tompkins, A.: The atmospheric general circulation model ECHAM5, Part I: Model description, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology Rep. 349, 127 pp., edited by: Sanchez-Gomez, E., Somot, S., and Déqué, M., 2009, Ability of an ensemble of regional climate models to reproduce weather regimes over Europe-Atlantic during the period 1961–2000, Clim. Dynam., 33(5), 723–736, 2003.

Scebba, F., Giuntini, D., Castagna, A., Soldatini, G., and Ranieri, A.: Analysing the impact of ozone on biochemical and physiological variables in plant species belonging to natural ecosystems, Environ. Exp. l Bot., 235–246, 2005.

Schlink U., Herbarth, O., Richter, M., Dorling, S., Nunnari, G., Cawley, G., and Pelikan, E.: Statistical models to assess the health effects and to forecast ground-level ozone, Environ. Modell. Soft., 21(4), 547–558, 2006.

Seinfeld, J. H. and Pandis, S. N.: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, John Wiley, 3rd Ed., U.S.A., 1998.

Seth, A. and Rojas, M.: Simulation and sensitivity in a nested modeling system for South America, Part I: reanalyses boundary forcing, J. Climate, 16, 2437–2453, 2003.

Sillman, S. and Samson, P. J.: Impact of temperature on oxidant photochemistry in urban, polluted rural and remote environments, J. Geophys. Res., 100(D6), 11497–11508, 1995.

Simpson, D., Winiwarter, W., Börjesson, G., Cinderby, S., Ferreiro, A., Guenther, A., Hewitt, C. N., Janson, R., Khalil, M. A. K., Owen, S., Pierce, T. E., Puxbaum, H., Shearer, M., Skiba, U., Steinbrecher, R., Tarrasón, L., and Öquist, M. G.: Inventorying emissions from nature in Europe, J. Geophys. Res., 104(D7), 8113–8152, 1999.

Small, E. E., Giorgi, F., and Sloan, L. C.: Regional climate model simulation of precipitation in Central Asia: mean and interannual variability, J. Geophys. Res., 104, 6563–6582, 1999.

Sprenger, M. and Wernli, H.: A northern hemispheric climatology of cross-tropopause exchange for the ERA15 time period (1979–1993), J. Geophys Res., 108(D12), 8521, doi::10.1029/2002JD002636, 2003.

Stevenson, D. S., Dentener, F. J., Schultz, M. G., Ellingsen, K., van Noije, T. P. C., Wild, O., Zeng, G., Amann, M., Atherton, C. S., Bell, N., and Bergmann, D. J.: Bey, Multimodel ensemble simulations of present-day and near-future tropospheric ozone, J. Geophys. Res., 111, D08301, doi:10.1029/2005JD006338, 2006.

Sun, L., Semazzi, F. H. M., Giorgi, F., and Ogallo, L.: Application of the NCAR regional climate model to eastern Africa. Part II: simulation of interannual variability of the short rains, J. Geophys. Res., 104, 6549–6565, 1999.

Szopa, S., Hauglustaine, D. A., Vautard, R., and Menut, L., Future global tropospheric ozone changes and impact on European air quality, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L18805, doi:10.1029/2006GL25860, 2006.

Tang, Y., Carmichael, G. R., Thongboonchoo, N., Chai, T., Horowitz, L. W., Pierce, R. B., Al-Saadi, J. A., Pfister, G., Vukovich, J. M., Avery, M. A., Sachse, G. W., Ryerson, T. B., Holloway, J. S., Atlas, E. L., Flocke, F. M., Weber, R. J., Huey, L. G., Dibb, J. E., Streets, D. G., and Brune, W. H.: Influence of lateral and top boundary conditions on regional air quality prediction: A multiscale study coupling regional and global chemical transport models, J. Geophys. Res., 112, D10S18, doi:10.1029/2006JD007515, 2007.

Uppala, S. M., Kallberg, P. W., Simmons, A. J., Andrae, U., da Costa Bechtold, V., Fiorino, M., Gibson, J. K., Haseler, J., Hernandez, A., Kelly, G. A., Li, X., Onogi, K., Saarinen, S., Sokka, N., Allan, R. P., Andersson, E., Arpe, K., Balmaseda, M.A., Beljaars, A. C. M., van de Berg, L., Bidlot, J., Bormann, N., Caires, S., Chevallier, F., Dethof, A., Dragosavac, M., Fisher, M., Fuentes, M., Hagemann, S., Holm, E., Hoskins, B. J., Isaksen, L., Janssen, P. A. E. M., Jenne, R., McNally, A. P., Mahfouf, J.-F., Morcrette, J.-J., Rayner, N. A., Saunders, R. W., Simon, P., Sterl, A., Trenberth, K. E., Untch, A., Vasiljevic, D., Viterbo, P., and Woollen, J.: The ERA-40 re-analysis, Quart. J. Royal Meteorol. Soc. 131, 2961–3012, 2005.

Vestreng, V., Breivik, K., Adams, M., Wagener, A., Goodwin, J., Rozovskaya, O., Pacyna, J. M.: Inventory Review 2005, Emission Data reported to LRTAP Convention and NEC Directive, Initial review of HMs and POPs, Technical report MSC-W 1/2005, ISSN 0804-2446, 2005.

Winiwarter, W. and Zueger, J.: Pannonisches Ozonprojekt, Teilprojekt Emissionen. Endbericht. Report OEFZS-A-3817, Austrian Research Center, Seibersdorf, 1996.

Zeng, X., Zhao, M., and Dickinson, R. E.: Intercomparison of bulk aerodynamic algorithms for the computation of sea surface fluxes using toga coare and tao data, J. Climate, 11, 2628–2644, 1998.