Development of an inorganic and organic aerosol model (Chimere2017β v1.0) : seasonal and spatial evaluation over Europe

Florian Couvidat (1) , Bertrand Bessagnet (1) , Marta Garcia-Vivanco (2) , Elsa Real (1) , Laurent Menut (3) , Augustin Colette (1)

1 INERIS - Institut National de l'Environnement Industriel et des Risques
2 CIEMAT - Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas Medioambientales y Tecnológicas [Madrid]
3 LMD - Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (UMR 8539)

A new aerosol module was developed and integrated in the air quality model CHIMERE. Developments include an update of biogenic emissions and of the inorganic thermodynamic model ISORROPIA, revision of wet deposition processes and of the algorithms of condensation/evaporation and coagulation and the implementation of the SOA mechanism H2O and the thermodynamic model SOAP. Concentrations of particles over Europe were simulated by the model for the year 2013. Model concentrations were compared to the EMEP program observations and other observations available in the EBAS database to evaluate the performances of the model. Performances were determined for several components of particles (sea salts, sulfate, ammonium, nitrate, organic aerosol) with a seasonal and regional analysis of results. The model gives good performances in general. For sea salts, the model succeeds in reproducing the seasonal evolution of concentrations for Western and Central Europe. For sulfate, except for an overestimation of sulfate in Northern Europe, modeled concentrations are close to observations with a good seasonal evolution of concentrations. For organic aerosol, the model performs well for stations with strong modeled biogenic SOA concentrations. However, the model strongly overestimates ammonium nitrate concentrations during late autumn (possibly due to problems in the temporal evolution of emissions) and strongly underestimates SOA concentrations over most of stations (especially in the Northern half of Europe). This underestimation could be due to a lack of anthropogenic SOA in the model. A list of recommended tests and developments to improve the model is also given.

Domains: Environmental Sciences

Florian Couvidat, Bertrand Bessagnet, Marta Garcia-Vivanco, Elsa Real, Laurent Menut, et al.. Development of an inorganic and organic aerosol model (Chimere2017β v1.0) : seasonal and spatial evaluation over Europe. Geoscientific Model Development, 2018, 11, pp.165-194. ⟨10.5194/gmd-11-165-2018⟩. ⟨ineris-01863249⟩