Urban Impact on Air Quality in RegCM/CAMx Couple for MEGAPOLI Climate Change Study in High Resolution

Abstract

For the purpose of qualifying and quantifying the climate forcing due to atmospheric chemistry/aerosols on regional scale, the regional climate model RegCM3 has been coupled with the chemistry/aerosol model CAMx. Experiments with the couple have been run for EC FP7 projectMEGAPOLI assessing the impact of the megacities and industrialized areas on climate. New domain have been settled in 10 km resolution including all the European “megacities” regions, i.e. London metropolitan area, Paris region, industrialized Ruhr area, Po valley etc. TNO emissions are adopted to resolve urban areas. A sensitivity test of the resolu- tion effect is presented to reveal whether the concept of effective emission indices could help to parameterize the urban plume effects in lower resolution models. The sensitivity test to switch on/off Paris area emissions is analysed as well.