Air Quality Study over the Atlantic Coast of Iberian Peninsula

Abstract

The west coast of Iberian Peninsula, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, is characterized by complex topography and some favourable synoptical situations, which imply the appearance of mesoscale circulations strongly influencing the transport of pollutants. On the other hand, the regions of Galicia (NW Spain), and the North of Portugal, have important air pollutants sources (power plants, chemical industries, traffic and biogenic emissions), all of them contributing to the air quality along the Atlantic coast and even affecting the centre of the Iberian Peninsula.

In order to achieve the proposed objectives, a hierarchy of models was applied: the results of a global numerical weather prediction model (GCM), namely the AVN (Aviation model from the National Centres for Environmental Prediction of USA) were used as initial and boundary conditions into the regional meteorological model of the Pennsylvania State University/ National Center for Atmospheric Research Mesoscale Meteorology Model (MM5) over an area that includes a large part of the Iberian Peninsula, using its nesting capabilities. To analyse the photochemical production over the fine grid domains an interface between the MM5 and a photochemical model (MARS) was built up, constituting an innovative approach and a first attempt to integrate these two models.

The achieved results must be considered as preliminary, since the application of this particular prognostic numerical system indicates that more refinement on the boundary layer parameterisations as well on the initial and boundary conditions applied to the MARS model is needed, although the systems represents quite well the ozone measured concentrations.