Abstract
Transboundary transport of dust is a phenomenon encountered across the globe, where pollution is generated in one area and impacts another, sometimes travelling thousands of kilometres, as in the case of desert dust storms. There is a relatively wide range of tools and methods for monitoring dust storms in the atmosphere, extending from near-ground measurements to satellite observations and numerical simulations. Evaluation of the numerical models is systematically conducted with the use of sun-photometers and satellite aerosol products which are integrated over the atmospheric column rather than exclusively near the ground. In this work we evaluate the performance of the ensemble numerical model Multi-Model Median (MMM), which forecasts the long-range transport of desert dust in the Mediterranean Region, using PM10 near-ground concentration measurements, collected at monitoring stations from three (3) different regional areas: Cyprus, Greece and Israel for the period of 2012–2016. The measurements represent background concentrations, removed from anthropogenic influence. Here we present the results from a preliminary evaluation analysis which shows that the ensemble numerical model generally underestimates the near-ground measurements for all sites.
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References
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge, the Department of Labour and Inspection of the Cyprus Ministry of Labour, Welfare and Social Insurance, the University of Crete, and the University of the Negev/Soroka Medical Center for the provision the PM10 concentration datasets. SDS-WAS (https://sds-was.aemet.es/) is acknowledged for the provision of the Multi-Model-Median forecast data. This work was supported by the European Union within the framework of the LIFE MEDEA 570 Program under the Grant Agreement LIFE16CCA/CY/000041.
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Questioner: George Tsegas
Question: Would it be a preferable assessment approach to use short-term correlation analysis only for episode days, also evaluating the time-of-arrival error of individual models?
Answer: We have focused only on days (daily average concentrations) with high PM10 concentrations measured near ground by background stations indicating dust transport, using the methodology and the results for the same region as described in Achilleos et al. (2019).
Questioner: Pavel Kishcha
Question: In the summer months, PM10 measurements in Crete and Cyprus do not represent desert dust by but monthly anthropogenic aerosols. So, I would recommend to limit your study to the dust period from February to April.
Answer: We have focused only on days (daily average concentrations) with high PM10 concentrations measured near ground by background stations indicating dust transport. For future work, we intent to extent our analysis, taking into account the seasonal variation of dust periods. Also we will evaluate the performance of the model under different meteorological and air quality conditions.
Questioner: Christian Hogrefe
Question: Do you plan to look at the forecast ensemble range in addition to the median and the best member?
Answer: The next step is to examine each model included in the Multi Model Median to find out which have better forecasts in the Eastern Mediterranean Region.
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Eleftheriou, A., Mouzourides, P., Neophytou, M.K.A. (2021). How Accurate are Dust Surface Concentrations Forecasts from Numerical Models? A Preliminary Analysis of the Multi-model Median Forecasting in Eastern Mediterranean Region. In: Mensink, C., Matthias, V. (eds) Air Pollution Modeling and its Application XXVII. ITM 2019. Springer Proceedings in Complexity. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-63760-9_49
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-63760-9_49
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