Adjoint sensitivity analysis of regional air quality models
Journal of Computational Physics
Position paper: Characterising performance of environmental models
Environmental Modelling & Software
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The Operational Street Pollution Model (OSPM^(R)) is a widely used air quality model for urban street canyons. It is a parametric model, simulating the contribution from traffic emissions on a single street at receptor points at the buildings' facades. The OSPM contains a number of empirical parameters, accounting for processes such as emission factors or dispersion of pollutants. The values of these parameters are based on empirical assumptions, and might not be optimal for a specific street. In this work, we allow these parameters to vary within a certain meaningful range. We implemented two different parameter estimation schemes: a dynamic estimation procedure (using an ensemble Kalman filter) that allowed parameter values to vary, and a static estimation procedure scheme (using a least-squares algorithm) that kept parameter values fixed during the course of the simulation. We ran year-long simulations for five different streets in Danish cities, and evaluated performance by comparing forecast concentrations of NO"x, NO"2, O"3 and CO with observations. Overall, the parameter estimation substantially improved the performance of the model in forecasting, especially for NO"2 and CO. However it led to slightly more bias in the modelled daily maximum concentrations, suggesting that the parameter estimation fits to the bulk of the data rather than the extremes. Estimated parameter values varied substantially in time and between sites, making it difficult to generalise parameter estimates to other locations. Modelled concentrations from the OSPM were, on average, notably more accurate in simulations using measured urban background concentrations and meteorological parameters compared to using modelled data for these inputs. However this is only applicable when observations from nearby meteorological and urban background monitoring sites are available. We conclude that although dynamic parameter estimation has limited applicability to real-time air quality forecasting, it can potentially give useful feedback about the quality of model parameterisations or model inputs. Static parameter estimation is a simpler method, which is often as effective as dynamic parameter estimation.