Alternative small scale meteorology input to a chemical transport model

In order to respond to the increasing demand for better understanding of the environment, air quality studies at different scales are required. The Community Multi-scale Air Quality Model (CMAQ) chemical transport model is designed to handle all major scales of interest. However, the meteorology input to the model has to represent adequately the atmospheric conditions at these scales. So far, the meteorological input to CMAQ has been supplied by the Fifth-Generation Pennsylvania State University/National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Mesoscale Model (MM5).; This research suggests another way to obtain small scale meteorological data from coarse resolution MM5 data instead of further running MM5 at fine resolution—a “prognostic-diagnostic mix” approach. We propose to use a diagnostic model to supply the meteorological data from coarse resolution MM5 data. The challenges of the linking process as well as air quality results from CMAQ are investigated. A proof of concept is presented.