Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
3.2 Particulate-Matter Forecasting with
GEM-MACH15, A New Canadian Air-Quality
Forecast Model
M.D. Moran 1 , S. Ménard 2 , D. Talbot 2 , P. Huang 3 , P.A. Makar 1 , W. Gong 1 ,
H. Landry 2 , S. Gravel 1 , S. Gong 1 , L.-P. Crevier 2 , A. Kallaur 4 , and M. Sassi 2
1
Air Quality Research Division, Environment Canada, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
2
Air Quality Modelling Applications Section, Environment Canada, Montreal, Quebec,
Canada
3
Contractor, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
4
Air Quality Research Division, Environment Canada, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Abstract Operational AQ forecasting began in Canada in 2001 with the imple-
mentation by Environment Canada (EC) of a continental-scale, 21-km, ozone-only
version of the CHRONOS off-line regional chemical transport model. Work to
replace CHRONOS with a 15-km limited-area version of GEM-MACH, an in-line
chemical transport model embedded within EC's operational weather forecast
model, GEM, started in 2006. Like CHRONOS, GEM-MACH15 employs a simple 2-
bin representation of the PM size distribution, but PM chemical composition is
treated in more detail and additional processes affecting PM concentration have
been included. This short paper focuses on PM forecasting with GEM-MACH15
and presents some preliminary evaluation results.
1. Introduction
Operational AQ forecasting began in Canada in 2001 with the implementation by
Environment Canada (EC) of a continental-scale, 21-km, ozone-only version of
the CHRONOS off-line regional chemical transport model (Pudykiewicz et al.,
1997; Sirois et al., 1998). The meteorological driver used with CHRONOS was the
regional configuration of EC's GEM operational weather forecast model (Côté et al.,
1997a, b). Operational CHRONOS forecasts of PM 2.5 and PM 10 using a simple 2-bin
sectional representation of the PM size distribution followed in 2003 (e.g., Fig. 1a).
A project to build a new operational AQ forecast modelling system started at
EC in 2006 (Talbot et al., 2008). The goal of this project is to replace CHRONOS with
a limited-area version of GEM-MACH ( G lobal E nvironmental M ultiscale model -
M odelling A ir quality and CH emistry), an in-line chemical transport model
embedded within the GEM weather forecast model. A number of AQ process
representations from EC's AURAMS chemical transport model (Gong et al.,
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