Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics www.atmos-chem-phys.net 1680-7316 1680-7324 9 11 2009 10.5194/acp-9-3777-2009 http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/9/3777/2009/ http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/9/3777/2009/acp-9-3777-2009.html http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/9/3777/2009/acp-9-3777-2009.pdf 3777 3798 2009-06-11 Comparisons of WRF/Chem simulations in Mexico City with ground-based RAMA measurements during the 2006-MILAGRO Y. Zhang yongxin@u.washington.edu M. K. Dubey S. C. Olsen J. Zheng R. Zhang Climate Impacts Group, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA Earth and Environmental Science Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, USA Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA Simulations using the fully coupled WRF/Chem (Weather Research and Forecasting – Chemistry) model at 3-km resolution in Mexico City have been performed to examine the temperature, relative humidity, wind, and gaseous criteria pollutants (CO, O₃, NO, NO₂, and NO_y) during the MCMA-2006/MILAGRO field campaign. Comparison of the model simulations with measurements from the ground-based air quality monitoring network (RAMA) is presented. The model resolves reasonably well the observed surface temperature, relative humidity and wind speed; however, large discrepancies are identified between the simulated and the observed surface wind direction for wind speeds below 2 m s^−1. The simulated chemical species concentrations (CO, O₃, NO, NO₂, and NO_y) compare favorably with the observations. Simulated O₃ concentrations agree especially well with the observations. The simulated 10 VOC species compare generally favorably with the observations at the T0 supersite although lower correlation coefficients and larger biases exist for propene, acetone and propanal, isoprene, and c10-aromatics when compared to the other VOC species. The model performs much better during daytime than nighttime for both chemical species and meteorological variables, although the model tends to underestimate daytime temperature and relative humidity. 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