Regional Air Quality

Theme coordinator: Vincent-Henri Peuch, Météo France

This theme is achieving its objective of producing daily regional forecasts of chemical species and air quality indices based on an ensemble of models covering a common European domain. Ten modelling partners participate in the activity. Their models use a new emissions dataset with 5km resolution developed specially for GEMS and common meteorological forcing from ECMWF operations. They take boundary conditions from the forecasts produced by the global GEMS system. Common archiving, display, and verification methods facilitate inter-comparison and validation of the forecasts. Memoranda of Understanding negotiated with environment agencies cover their near-real-time supply of national air-quality measurements to GEMS for validation and their receipt of forecast data from GEMS. The regional models are also being run cooperatively to examine key periods from the extreme year of 2003. The theme includes assessment of the value of its products for protection of human health.

The maps show 66-hour forecasts of nitrogen dioxide [µg/m3] valid for 18 UTC 30 January 2008, produced by Météo-France (left), the Met Office (middle) and the University of Cologne (right). The latest forecasts can be found on the products page for regional air quality.

Model	Partner		Model	Partner
BOLCHEM	CNR-ISAC		MATCH	SMHI
CAC	DMI		MM5-CAMx	NKUA
CHIMERE	CNRS & SA-UPMC		MOCAGE	METEO-FR
EMEP	met.no		NAME-AQ	METO-UK
EURAD	FRIUUK		SILAM	FMI

SMHI, the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, is not a contractual participant in the project, but contributes on a voluntary basis. An additional partner, MPI-M, participates in the case studies from 2003 using its REMO model.

Related

• GEMS RAQ Products
• PROMOTE Project
• PROMOTE Air Quality Services