Title: Surface and upper-air WRF-CALMET simulations assessment over a coastal and complex terrain area

Authors: José A. González; Anel Hernández-Garcés; Angel Rodríguez; Santiago Saavedra; Juan J. Casares

Addresses: Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Santiago de Compostela, 15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain ' Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Santiago de Compostela, 15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain ' Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Santiago de Compostela, 15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain ' Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Santiago de Compostela, 15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain ' Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Santiago de Compostela, 15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Abstract: Air quality modelling requires accurate and detailed meteorological modelling, depending on the scale of the problem. As a consequence, comparison of meteorological modelling results against both surface and aloft meteorological observations is highly recommended. In this work, a CALMET diagnostic model (at three different horizontal resolutions) is nested to WRF model simulations (3 km horizontal resolution) over a complex terrain and coastal domain at NW of Spain. Both CALMET and WRF results are compared to upper-air measurements, showing that PBL depth CALMET results are better than WRF results. About surface comparison, four different CALMET input datasets are tested, showing that the lowest RMSE is obtained by CALMET using WRF results and surface measurements as input dataset.

Keywords: CALMET; WRF; model validation; model comparisons; surface data; rawinsonde data; PBL depth; simulation; coastal areas; complex terrain; air quality modelling; air pollution; Spain.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEP.2015.074509

International Journal of Environment and Pollution, 2015 Vol.57 No.3/4, pp.249 - 260

Received: 26 Dec 2014
Accepted: 07 Oct 2015

Published online: 02 Feb 2016 *

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