Aerosol-Radiation Feedback and PM10 Air Concentrations Over Poland

The meteorological and chemical transport model Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF-Chem) has been implemented over Poland, for the episode of high measured PM10 concentrations of January 2011. The online-coupled models, like WRF-Chem, can simulate feedback effects between meteorological variables and chemical species and may provide more accurate representations of the real atmosphere for regulatory applications if compared to the offline models. The aim of this work is to evaluate the WRF-Chem model results for PM10 and to quantify the feedback effects on modelled aerosol concentrations over Poland.
The WRF-Chem model, version 3.5, was configured with two one way nested domains. The outermost domain covers Europe with a horizontal resolution of 45km x 45km (100 x 115 grid points). The nested domain covers the area of Poland and surrounding countries with spatial resolution of 15km x 15km (106 x 106 grid points). The simulations were driven by the NCEP final analysis, available every 6h, with 1o x 1o spatial resolution and the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR). The Regional Acid Deposition Model (RADM2) gas phase chemistry and the Modal Aerosol Dynamics Model for Europe with Secondary Organic Aerosol Model (MADE/SORGAM) aerosol module were applied.
For this study three simulations were run: 1) a base simulation with no aerosol feedback on meteorology; 2) a simulation with the direct effect included; 3) a simulation including the direct and the indirect aerosol effect. The results were compared and verified against measurements of air concentrations of PM10, gathered at monitoring stations belonging to country inspectorates. The impact of direct effect of aerosol particles on radiation and indirect aerosol effect on meteorological variables and PM10 concentration was analysed.