Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
5.2 Validation of Coupled Regional Climate Chemistry
Simulation in CECILIA EC FP6 Project
Tomas Halenka, Peter Huszar, and Michal Belda
Charles University, Department of Meteorology and Environment Protection,
V Holesovickach 2, 180 00 Prague, Czech Republic
Abstract
The coupling of regional climate model and chemistry/aerosol model
has been performed recently in the Department of Meteorology and Environmental
Protection, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University in Prague, for
the EC 6FP Project QUANTIFY and finally for EC 6FP Project CECILIA. One
objective of the latter, aiming to study climate change impacts in Central and
Eastern Europe based on very high resolution simulations using regional climate
models (RCM) in 10 km grid, is dealing with climate change impacts on and
interaction to air quality. Chemistry is solved by model CAMx which is coupled to
model RegCM, as the first step the distribution of pollutants is simulated off-line
for long period in the model couple. The results of “perfect” boundary condition
run driven by ERA40 reanalysis are validated against the observations in the
region. Some sensitivity runs are performed as well.
Keywords
Regional climate modeling, air-quality modeling, long term validation
1. High Resolution Coupling of Chemistry and Climate
In the assessment of climate change impacts, the information on climate change at
regional to local scale is fundamental which Global Circulation Models (GCMs)
cannot reproduce reasonably well. Thus, dynamical downscaling, i.e., nesting of a
higher resolution limited area model (or Regional Climate Model, RCM) within
the GCM becomes the most convenient tool considering processes significantly
affected by topography and land use of the region for this kind of studies. This is
especially true when estimating the impacts of climate change on air-quality. In
the region of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) the need for high resolution
studies is particularly important with respect to complex terrain of the territory,
that is why 10 km resolution has been introduced in the EC FP6 project CECILIA.
The main aim of the project dealing with climate change impacts and vulnerability
assessment in targeted areas of CEE is the application of regional climate
modelling studies at a resolution of 10 km for local impact studies in key sectors
of the region. The project is covering studies on hydrology, water quality and
