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Jerome D. Fast Pacific Northwest National Laboratory P.O. Box 999/K9-30 Richland, WA 99352 email: Jerome.Fast@pnl.gov In collaboration with national laboratory and university researchers in the Atmospheric Sciences Program (ASP), an advanced fully-coupled meteorology-chemistry-aerosol model, PNNL’s version of Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF)-chem, will be used to simulate the mass, size distribution, composition, physical characteristics, and optical properties of particulates as well as aerosol direct and indirect forcing over urban to regional scales. Our analyses will integrate the findings of ASP field observations and modeling developments to address issues of importance to the ASP mission that include: quantifying the uncertainties associated with urban to regional-scale predictions of anthropogenic particulates as they are transported from urban sources and mixed into the regional-scale environment with precursor trace gases, natural particulates, and particulates from other anthropogenic sources; examining how those uncertainties affect the estimates of direct and indirect forcing; determining whether urban to regional-scale variations in aerosol radiative forcing are significant in terms of global climate modeling; and identifying which key processes resolved by urban to regional-scale simulations need to be better represented in global climate models. Our comprehensive approach that synthesizes data analysis and modeling will elucidate aerosol-chemistry-cloud-radiation feedback mechanisms. Our analysis will utilize measurements obtained during future ASP field campaigns, including ASP’s participation in FY 2004 summer’s Northeast Air Quality Study-International Transport and Chemical Transformation (NEASQ-ITCT) field campaign. Improved aerosol parameterizations will be tested and evaluated within our modeling framework. Since our version of WRF-chem is based on a community model, improved aerosol treatments can be easily disseminated to other ASP scientists and to the larger aerosol and climate scientific community. [back to ASP ST Membership] |