Abstract
Abstract. Coupled Chemistry Aerosol-Tracer Transport model to the Brazilian developments on the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (CCATT-BRAMS, version 4.5) is an on-line regional chemical transport model designed for local and regional studies of atmospheric chemistry from the surface to the lower stratosphere suitable both for operational and research purposes. It includes gaseous/aqueous chemistry, photochemistry, scavenging and dry deposition. The CCATT-BRAMS model takes advantage of BRAMS-specific development for the tropics/subtropics as well as the recent availability of preprocessing tools for chemical mechanisms and fast codes for photolysis rates. BRAMS includes state-of-the-art physical parameterizations and dynamic formulations to simulate atmospheric circulations down to the meter. This on-line coupling of meteorology and chemistry allows the system to be used for simultaneous weather and chemical composition forecasts as well as potential feedback between the two. The entire system is made of three preprocessing software tools for user-defined chemical mechanisms, aerosol and trace gas emissions fields and the interpolation of initial and boundary conditions for meteorology and chemistry. In this paper, the model description is provided along with the evaluations performed by using observational data obtained from ground-based stations, instruments aboard aircrafts and retrieval from space remote sensing. The evaluation accounts for model applications at different scales from megacities and the Amazon Basin up to the intercontinental region of the Southern Hemisphere.
Highlights
The type of models most commonly used to study and forecast atmospheric chemistry is the Eulerian three-dimensional chemistry transport model (CTM)
For the BARCA A period, in November 2008, the model results indicate the predominance of the inflow of southwest Atlantic air masses into the Amazon Basin, which can be seen in OMI/MLS data (Fig. 5a and b)
The east–west gradients of the O3 mixing ratio inside the Amazon Basin are similar for both model and OMI/MLS data, though there is a bias of approximately 30 %
Summary
The type of models most commonly used to study and forecast atmospheric chemistry is the Eulerian three-dimensional chemistry transport model (CTM). We present a new modeling tool devoted to local and regional studies of atmospheric chemistry from the surface to the lower stratosphere that is designed for both operational and research purposes This new model represents an advancement in the limited-area model CATT-BRAMS (Coupled Aerosol-Tracer Transport model to the Brazilian developments on the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System, Freitas et al, 2009; Longo et al, 2010), which includes a chemical module for both gaseous and aqueous phases.
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