Urban Scale Meteorological and Air Quality Forecast for the Biggest Israeli Cities Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa: WRF-Chem Model Simulation

Abstract

The new version of WRF Modeling System (ver. 3.3) is run on nested domains of resolution 27, 9, 3 and 1 km. The three innermost domains with resolution of 1 km overlap three very different topographical areas with the biggest Israeli cities Jerusalem, Tel-Aviv and Haifa. Namely, Jerusalem is located on the southern spur of the Judean Mountains with the elevation of 700-800 m. The Great Tel Aviv urban area includes Tel Aviv itself and several satellite towns. The urban area lies about 20 km along the Mediterranean shoreline at coastal plain and extends about 10 km inland. Haifa is situated on the slopes of the Carmel range, stretching from the Mediterranean shoreline towards the southeast. The object of study is the high resolution pattern of wind and temperature fields, vertical turbulent structure within and over the urban canopy and the urban heat island (UHI) effect. The simulated by the WRF-ARW model wind field and atmospheric turbulent structure are the base for air pollutants transport and diffusion within urban canopy and outside the city. A coupled WRF-Chem modeling system is applied to analyze the temporal and spatial dynamics of pollutant concentration fields, first of all nitrogen oxides from traffic exhausts. The general goal of the study is to develop an easy-to-use tool for urban air quality forecast, based on the operative short-term weather forecast. © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014.