Focus Area:
Regional Scale Mercury Modeling

The primary research air quality model currently used by AIRMAP and NESCCAF is the Community Multi-Scale Air Quality (CMAQ) model, developed by EPA/NOAA . Until recently, gas and aerosol phase chemistry for mercury (Hg) had not yet been incorporated into the model. We plan to utilize a new version (CMAQ version 4.5) which includes mercury chemistry to initially conduct a rigorous evaluation of the performance of CMAQ, using data from AIRMAP and this program, for mercury simulations in addition to a suite of EPA standard air pollutants.   Moreover, we are adding modules to CMAQ to handle more complete secondary processing of biogenic trace gases and aerosols ( e.g., SOA's).   Our improved and enhanced atmospheric modeling capabilities should provide the best possible simulations of regional scale atmospheric processes.

This modeling will build off of recent modeling and inventory work conducted by NESCAUM/NESCCAF utilizing the REMSAD version 7.13 platform which has the ability to tag and track mercury emissions from various geographical regions. New model runs with CMAQ version 4.5 and REMSAD with mercury tagging will allow for a three way comparison of two models against observations.