A New Canadian Modeling Platform for Policy Emission Reduction Scenarios: Year 2006 Configuration

Abstract

The Air Quality Modeling and Application Section of Environment Canada (EC) is transitioning its policy modeling platform from base year 2002 to base year 2006. The motivation behind this transition is to take into account the latest technological and scientific information upon which sound advice can be given to policy management. The latest data available at the beginning of the transition process includes 2006 emission inventories, 2006 meteorology inputs, and latest tools such as the meteorological and chemical transport models, interpolators, etc. The development of such a modeling platform encompasses the meteorology generation and interpolation, the emissions inventory and processing tools, post-processing of the modeling outputs, preparation of inputs for health and environmental benefits valuation models as well as the performance verification. The new system also addresses some of the technical weaknesses of the previous platform such as portability for different users, domain nesting capabilities, flexibility in emissions scenarios, more robust post-processing tools and better system diagnostic tools (reporting, error traceability). These changes will facilitate easier exchange of scenario configurations, data and results, allowing for improved coordination and collaboration between EC modelers. This paper provides an overview of the new policy modeling platform. It first outlines the general model configuration follow by preliminary results of the 2006 annual base case evaluation.