Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Evaluation Of The Community Multiscale Air Quality Model For Simulating Winter Ozone Formation In The Uinta Basin, Rebecca Matichuk, Gail Tonnesen, Deborah Luecken, Rob Gillam, Sergey L. Napelenok, Kirk R. Baker, Donna Schwede, Ben Murphy, Detlev Helmig, Seth N. Lyman, Shawn Roselle

Bingham Research Center

The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) and Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) models were used to simulate a 10 day high-ozone episode observed during the 2013 Uinta Basin Winter Ozone Study (UBWOS). The baseline model had a large negative bias when compared to ozone (O₃) and volatile organic compound (VOC) measurements across the basin. Contrary to other wintertime Uinta Basin studies, predicted nitrogen oxides (NO_x) were typically low compared to measurements. Increases to oil and gas VOC emissions resulted in O₃ predictions closer to observations, and nighttime O₃ improved when reducing the deposition velocity …