Updating forecasting tools
Over the past couple of years, ACOM has developed a web portal to provide community access to the Lab’s advanced modeling and chemical forecast products. The portal contains a suite of tools for visualizing and downloading Community Climate Model (WACCM) and Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with Chemistry (WRF-Chem) historical and forecast data that is run daily by the lab (https://www2.acom.ucar.edu/acresp/forecasts-and-near-real-time-nrt-products). These tools include the NASA Worldview tool, pre-plotted maps, customizable map, cross section, and time series plots, and fully customizable data downloads. There are also tools for viewing Measurement of Pollution in the Troposphere (MOPITT), and Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) satellite data. This comprehensive suite of tools is designed to provide the scientific community a convenient way to investigate observed and modeled air quality and chemistry of the atmosphere on a range of scales from a single web location.
Figure 1 shows an example of the pre-plotted products available from WACCM (1a), and WRF-Chem (1b), and demonstrates the different model scales that are available to users. WRF-Chem forecasts provide model output at high horizontal resolution (12 km) over the Conus United States, and are primarily utilized for air quality and tropospheric chemistry. WACCM forecasts provide output at lower horizontal resolution (approximately 1 degree, or 110 km), but cover the entire globe, and focus on the entire atmosphere from the surface, all the way up through the thermosphere to approximately 150 km altitude.
Since its creation, the web portal and associated model data have supported, and/or continue to support the research community in various ways, including US and international field campaigns such as FIREX-AQ, SouthTRAC, and ACCLIP, as well as research activities at Washington State University, Manchester University in the United Kingdom, and the World Resource Institute in Washington DC that utilize our raw model output and plotted model data products.
