File Download
  Links for fulltext
     (May Require Subscription)
Supplementary

Article: MICS-Asia III: multi-model comparison and evaluation of aerosol over East Asia

TitleMICS-Asia III: multi-model comparison and evaluation of aerosol over East Asia
Authors
Keywordsaerosol
air quality
atmospheric pollution
black carbon
comparative study
Issue Date2019
PublisherCopernicus GmbH. The Journal's web site is located at http://www.atmospheric-chemistry-and-physics.net
Citation
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 2019, v. 19, p. 11911-11937 How to Cite?
AbstractA total of 14 chemical transport models (CTMs) participated in the first topic of the Model Inter-Comparison Study for Asia (MICS-Asia) phase III. These model results are compared with each other and an extensive set of measurements, aiming to evaluate the current CTMs' ability in simulating aerosol concentrations, to document the similarities and differences among model performance, and to reveal the characteristics of aerosol components in large cities over East Asia. In general, these CTMs can well reproduce the spatial–temporal distributions of aerosols in East Asia during the year 2010. The multi-model ensemble mean (MMEM) shows better performance than most single-model predictions, with correlation coefficients (between MMEM and measurements) ranging from 0.65 (nitrate, NO−3) to 0.83 (PM2.5). The concentrations of black carbon (BC), sulfate (SO2−4), and PM10 are underestimated by MMEM, with normalized mean biases (NMBs) of −17.0 %, −19.1 %, and −32.6 %, respectively. Positive biases are simulated for NO−3 (NMB = 4.9 %), ammonium (NH+4) (NMB = 14.0 %), and PM2.5 (NMB = 4.4 %). In comparison with the statistics calculated from MICS-Asia phase II, frequent updates of chemical mechanisms in CTMs during recent years make the intermodel variability of simulated aerosol concentrations smaller, and better performance can be found in reproducing the temporal variations of observations. However, a large variation (about a factor of 2) in the ratios of SNA (sulfate, nitrate, and ammonium) to PM2.5 is calculated among participant models. A more intense secondary formation of SO2−4 is simulated by Community Multi-scale Air Quality (CMAQ) models, because of the higher SOR (sulfur oxidation ratio) than other models (0.51 versus 0.39). The NOR (nitric oxidation ratio) calculated by all CTMs has larger values (∼0.20) than the observations, indicating that overmuch NO−3 is simulated by current models. NH3-limited condition (the mole ratio of ammonium to sulfate and nitrate is smaller than 1) can be successfully reproduced by all participant models, which indicates that a small reduction in ammonia may improve the air quality. A large coefficient of variation (CV > 1.0) is calculated for simulated coarse particles, especially over arid and semi-arid regions, which means that current CTMs have difficulty producing similar dust emissions by using different dust schemes. According to the simulation results of MMEM in six large Asian cities, different air-pollution control plans should be taken due to their different major air pollutants in different seasons. The MICS-Asia project gives an opportunity to discuss the similarities and differences of simulation results among CTMs in East Asian applications. In order to acquire a better understanding of aerosol properties and their impacts, more experiments should be designed to reduce the diversities among air quality models.
Persistent Identifierhttp://hdl.handle.net/10722/291008
ISSN
2021 Impact Factor: 7.197
2020 SCImago Journal Rankings: 2.622
ISI Accession Number ID

 

DC FieldValueLanguage
dc.contributor.authorChen, L-
dc.contributor.authorGao, Y-
dc.contributor.authorZhang, M-
dc.contributor.authorFu, JS-
dc.contributor.authorZhu, J-
dc.contributor.authorLiao, H-
dc.contributor.authorLi, J-
dc.contributor.authorHuang, K-
dc.contributor.authorGe, B-
dc.contributor.authorWang, X-
dc.contributor.authorLam, YF-
dc.contributor.authorLin, CY-
dc.contributor.authorItahashi, S-
dc.contributor.authorNagashima, T-
dc.contributor.authorKajino, M-
dc.contributor.authorYamaji, K-
dc.contributor.authorWang, Z-
dc.contributor.authorKurokawa, JI-
dc.date.accessioned2020-11-02T05:50:15Z-
dc.date.available2020-11-02T05:50:15Z-
dc.date.issued2019-
dc.identifier.citationAtmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 2019, v. 19, p. 11911-11937-
dc.identifier.issn1680-7316-
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10722/291008-
dc.description.abstractA total of 14 chemical transport models (CTMs) participated in the first topic of the Model Inter-Comparison Study for Asia (MICS-Asia) phase III. These model results are compared with each other and an extensive set of measurements, aiming to evaluate the current CTMs' ability in simulating aerosol concentrations, to document the similarities and differences among model performance, and to reveal the characteristics of aerosol components in large cities over East Asia. In general, these CTMs can well reproduce the spatial–temporal distributions of aerosols in East Asia during the year 2010. The multi-model ensemble mean (MMEM) shows better performance than most single-model predictions, with correlation coefficients (between MMEM and measurements) ranging from 0.65 (nitrate, NO−3) to 0.83 (PM2.5). The concentrations of black carbon (BC), sulfate (SO2−4), and PM10 are underestimated by MMEM, with normalized mean biases (NMBs) of −17.0 %, −19.1 %, and −32.6 %, respectively. Positive biases are simulated for NO−3 (NMB = 4.9 %), ammonium (NH+4) (NMB = 14.0 %), and PM2.5 (NMB = 4.4 %). In comparison with the statistics calculated from MICS-Asia phase II, frequent updates of chemical mechanisms in CTMs during recent years make the intermodel variability of simulated aerosol concentrations smaller, and better performance can be found in reproducing the temporal variations of observations. However, a large variation (about a factor of 2) in the ratios of SNA (sulfate, nitrate, and ammonium) to PM2.5 is calculated among participant models. A more intense secondary formation of SO2−4 is simulated by Community Multi-scale Air Quality (CMAQ) models, because of the higher SOR (sulfur oxidation ratio) than other models (0.51 versus 0.39). The NOR (nitric oxidation ratio) calculated by all CTMs has larger values (∼0.20) than the observations, indicating that overmuch NO−3 is simulated by current models. NH3-limited condition (the mole ratio of ammonium to sulfate and nitrate is smaller than 1) can be successfully reproduced by all participant models, which indicates that a small reduction in ammonia may improve the air quality. A large coefficient of variation (CV > 1.0) is calculated for simulated coarse particles, especially over arid and semi-arid regions, which means that current CTMs have difficulty producing similar dust emissions by using different dust schemes. According to the simulation results of MMEM in six large Asian cities, different air-pollution control plans should be taken due to their different major air pollutants in different seasons. The MICS-Asia project gives an opportunity to discuss the similarities and differences of simulation results among CTMs in East Asian applications. In order to acquire a better understanding of aerosol properties and their impacts, more experiments should be designed to reduce the diversities among air quality models.-
dc.languageeng-
dc.publisherCopernicus GmbH. The Journal's web site is located at http://www.atmospheric-chemistry-and-physics.net-
dc.relation.ispartofAtmospheric Chemistry and Physics-
dc.rightsThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.-
dc.subjectaerosol-
dc.subjectair quality-
dc.subjectatmospheric pollution-
dc.subjectblack carbon-
dc.subjectcomparative study-
dc.titleMICS-Asia III: multi-model comparison and evaluation of aerosol over East Asia-
dc.typeArticle-
dc.identifier.emailLam, YF: yunlam@hku.hk-
dc.identifier.authorityLam, YF=rp02573-
dc.description.naturepublished_or_final_version-
dc.identifier.doi10.5194/acp-19-11911-2019-
dc.identifier.scopuseid_2-s2.0-85072639084-
dc.identifier.hkuros317888-
dc.identifier.volume19-
dc.identifier.spage11911-
dc.identifier.epage11937-
dc.identifier.isiWOS:000488022200001-
dc.publisher.placeGermany-
dc.identifier.issnl1680-7316-

Export via OAI-PMH Interface in XML Formats


OR


Export to Other Non-XML Formats