3G: WACCM forecasts

For many years the tropospheric chemistry transport model MOZART-4 has been run daily to provide a 5-day chemical forecast of tropospheric composition.  This past year we have set up the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM) to run daily in a similar manner to the MOZART-4 forecasts. WACCM is driven by forecast meteorology from GEOS-FP providing 10-day forecasts of tropospheric, stratospheric and mesospheric composition.  Fire emissions are updated daily from calculations with FINN based on Rapid Response MODIS fire counts. A website provides access to forecast images and data files: https://www.acom.ucar.edu/waccm/forecast/

Model output is freely available for community users to use as boundary conditions for real-time boundary conditions for regional air quality models.  A variety of images and visualization tools are available. Premade images of multiple compounds at several levels are available as still images or animations on a custom ACOM website.  An interactive plotting tool allows any compound saved in the model forecast output to be displayed on custom maps, as vertical cross sections or time series. A local installation of NASA’s Worldview visualization web tool includes images of WACCM output which can be viewed with numerous satellite observations (Figure 1). It allows the user to select different chemical fields, model levels, and zoom into different regions and will help to evaluate model results.  An advantage of the WACCM forecasts over MOZART-4 is the capability to monitor the ozone hole, as full stratospheric chemistry and dynamics are included in the forecasts (Figure 2).