Chemical weather forecasts using the MOZART-2 global model in ITCT 2K2

The Model for Ozone and Related Chemical Tracers (MOZART-2) was used as part of the Intercontinental Transport and Chemical Transformation field campaign (ITCT 2K2) conducted in Spring 2002 over the western United States and eastern Pacific. MOZART, a global chemical transport model, was used to forecast future chemical conditions, including the distributions of CO, NOx, O3, and other trace species. These forecasts, along with those from several other global and regional models, were used to aid in the flight planning process. Of particular interest were forecasts of the timing and location of long-range pollution transport events from Asia. MOZART was also re-run using analyzed meteorological input fields. We will evaluate the performance of the MOZART forecast and analysis simulations. We will present several cases studies comparing the model results with the observations taken aboard the NOAA P3 aircraft during the field campaign. We will discuss some of the strengths and weaknesses of the chemical forecasts, and will evaluate the improvement in model results when using analyzed meteorology versus forecast meteorology. We will also use tagged emission tracers in the model to attribute source regions to the observed pollution plumes.