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Improvement in the accuracy of back trajectories using WRF to identify pollen sources in southern Iberian Peninsula

International Journal of Biometeorology volume 58, pages 2031–2043 (2014)Cite this article

Abstract

Airborne pollen transport at micro-, meso-gamma and meso-beta scales must be studied by atmospheric models, having special relevance in complex terrain. In these cases, the accuracy of these models is mainly determined by the spatial resolution of the underlying meteorological dataset. This work examines how meteorological datasets determine the results obtained from atmospheric transport models used to describe pollen transport in the atmosphere. We investigate the effect of the spatial resolution when computing backward trajectories with the HYSPLIT model. We have used meteorological datasets from the WRF model with 27, 9 and 3 km resolutions and from the GDAS files with 1 ° resolution. This work allows characterizing atmospheric transport of Olea pollen in a region with complex flows. The results show that the complex terrain affects the trajectories and this effect varies with the different meteorological datasets. Overall, the change from GDAS to WRF-ARW inputs improves the analyses with the HYSPLIT model, thereby increasing the understanding the pollen episode. The results indicate that a spatial resolution of at least 9 km is needed to simulate atmospheric flows that are considerable affected by the relief of the landscape. The results suggest that the appropriate meteorological files should be considered when atmospheric models are used to characterize the atmospheric transport of pollen on micro-, meso-gamma and meso-beta scales. Furthermore, at these scales, the results are believed to be generally applicable for related areas such as the description of atmospheric transport of radionuclides or in the definition of nuclear-radioactivity emergency preparedness.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the European Social Fund and the Spanish Science Ministry for joint financing. Dr. García-Mozo was supported by a “Ramón y Cajal” contract. The Andalusia Regional Government funded the project entitled “Analisis de la Dinamica del Polen Atmosferico en Andalucia” (RNM-5958). Dr. Skjøth was supported by the Danish Research Council through the project SUPREME. The authors also thank the Science and Innovation Ministry for funding the project entitled “Impacto del Cambio Climatico en la Fenologia de especies vegetales del Centro y Sur de la Peninsula Iberica” (FENOCLIM) CGL2011-24146. Support from the EU FP7-HIALINE project is gratefully acknowledged. The authors gratefully acknowledge the NOAA Air Resources Laboratory (ARL) for the provision of the HYSPLIT transport and dispersion model used in this publication, to the Andalusia Government Agroclimatic Information Network (RIA) for providing meteorological observations for Cordoba, and to the ENRESA company for facilitating the pollen and meteorological study at the “El Cabril” station.

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  1. M. A. Hernández-Ceballos

    Present address: European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Institute for Transuranium Elements, Nuclear Security Unit, Ispra, Italy

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Physics, University of Huelva, Huelva, Spain

    M. A. Hernández-Ceballos & J. P. Bolívar

  2. National Pollen and Aerobiology Research Unit, Institute of Science and the Environment, University of Worcester, Worcester, UK

    C. A. Skjøth

  3. Department of Botany, Ecology and Plant Physiology, Agrifood Campus of International Excellence (CeiA3), University of Córdoba, Córdoba, Spain

    H. García-Mozo & C. Galán

Authors
  1. M. A. Hernández-Ceballos
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  2. C. A. Skjøth
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  3. H. García-Mozo
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  4. J. P. Bolívar
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Correspondence to M. A. Hernández-Ceballos.

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Hernández-Ceballos, M.A., Skjøth, C.A., García-Mozo, H. et al. Improvement in the accuracy of back trajectories using WRF to identify pollen sources in southern Iberian Peninsula. Int J Biometeorol 58, 2031–2043 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-014-0804-x

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Keywords

  • Back trajectories
  • Atmospheric models
  • HYSPLIT
  • WRF
  • Olea pollen
  • Southern Spain