10th International Aerosol Conference September 2 - September 7, 2018 America's Center Convention Complex St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Abstract View
Improving SOA Formation in the Source-oriented WRF/Chem Model (SOWC) in Southeast US and the Air Quality and Climate Impacts
HONGLIANG ZHANG, Anikender Kumar, Michael Kleeman, Louisiana State University
Abstract Number: 128 Working Group: Aerosol Modeling
Abstract Aerosols from natural and anthropogenic sources could affect climate by directly absorbing and scattering radiation and indirectly acting as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN). Key features affecting aerosols’ radiative forcing ability such as the primary source origins, differential secondary formation coatings, and mixing state are not well represented in current air quality and climate models. The source-oriented WRF/Chem model (SOWC) tracks particles from different sources separately and has the ability to better predict the aerosol-meteorology-climate interactions. This study, new secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation pathways (the aging process, aerosol surface uptake and effect of vapor wall loss) are incorporated in the SOWC to investigate the climate effects in Southeast US. Summer 2013 is selected to take advantage of the extensive measurements from field campaigns. The Sparse Matrix Operator Kernel Emissions (SMOKE) Modeling System is used to generate source-oriented anthropogenic emissions from the National Emissions Inventory (NEI) 2011. The increase of SOA predictions from each improvement will be quantified and the feedbacks of aerosols to meteorology and climate will be estimated. The results of this project would also encourage the scientific community to include these features in global climate models for long term simulations to reevaluate the past and predict the future.