Southeast Atmosphere Studies: learning from model-observation syntheses

Author/Creator ORCID

Date

2018-02-22

Department

Program

Citation of Original Publication

Mao, J., Carlton, A., Cohen, R. C., Brune, W. H., Brown, S. S., Wolfe, G. M., Jimenez, J. L., Pye, H. O. T., Lee Ng, N., Xu, L., McNeill, V. F., Tsigaridis, K., McDonald, B. C., Warneke, C., Guenther, A., Alvarado, M. J., de Gouw, J., Mickley, L. J., Leibensperger, E. M., Mathur, R., Nolte, C. G., Portmann, R. W., Unger, N., Tosca, M., and Horowitz, L. W.: Southeast Atmosphere Studies: learning from model-observation syntheses, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 2615–2651, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-2615-2018, 2018.

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Public Domain Mark 1.0
This work was written as part of one of the author's official duties as an Employee of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under U.S. Law.

Subjects

Abstract

Concentrations of atmospheric trace species in the United States have changed dramatically over the past several decades in response to pollution control strategies, shifts in domestic energy policy and economics, and economic development (and resulting emission changes) elsewhere in the world. Reliable projections of the future atmosphere require models to not only accurately describe current atmospheric concentrations, but to do so by representing chemical, physical and biological processes with conceptual and quantitative fidelity. Only through incorporation of the processes controlling emissions and chemical mechanisms that represent the key transformations among reactive molecules can models reliably project the impacts of future policy, energy and climate scenarios. Efforts to properly identify and implement the fundamental and controlling mechanisms in atmospheric models benefit from intensive observation periods, during which collocated measurements of diverse, speciated chemicals in both the gas and condensed phases are obtained. The Southeast Atmosphere Studies (SAS, including SENEX, SOAS, NOMADSS and SEAC4RS) conducted during the summer of 2013 provided an unprecedented opportunity for the atmospheric modeling community to come together to evaluate, diagnose and improve the representation of fundamental climate and air quality processes in models of varying temporal and spatial scales.