Articles | Volume 18, issue 13
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-4231-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-4231-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
A new set of indicators for model evaluation complementing FAIRMODE's modelling quality objective (MQO)
Alexander de Meij
MetClim, 21025 Varese, Italy
Cornelis Cuvelier
European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), 21027 Ispra, Italy
retired with Active Senior Agreement
Philippe Thunis
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), 21027 Ispra, Italy
Enrico Pisoni
European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), 21027 Ispra, Italy
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Air pollution's origin in cities is still a point of discussion, and approaches to assess the city's responsibility for its pollution are not harmonized and thus not comparable, resulting in sometimes contradicting interpretations. We show that methodological choices can easily lead to differences of a factor of 2 in terms of responsibility outcome and stress that methodological choices and assumptions most often lead to a systematic and important underestimation of the city's responsibility.
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Philippe Thunis, Alain Clappier, Alexander de Meij, Enrico Pisoni, Bertrand Bessagnet, and Leonor Tarrason
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Air pollution's origin in cities is still a point of discussion, and approaches to assess the city's responsibility for its pollution are not harmonized and thus not comparable, resulting in sometimes contradicting interpretations. We show that methodological choices can easily lead to differences of a factor of 2 in terms of responsibility outcome and stress that methodological choices and assumptions most often lead to a systematic and important underestimation of the city's responsibility.
Philippe Thunis, Alain Clappier, Matthias Beekmann, Jean Philippe Putaud, Cornelis Cuvelier, Jessie Madrazo, and Alexander de Meij
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Jean-Philippe Putaud, Luca Pozzoli, Enrico Pisoni, Sebastiao Martins Dos Santos, Friedrich Lagler, Guido Lanzani, Umberto Dal Santo, and Augustin Colette
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To determine the impact of the COVID lockdown on air quality in northern Italy, measurements of atmospheric pollutants (NO2, PM10, O3, NO, SO2 ) were compared to the output of a model ignoring the lockdown. We found that NO2 decreased on average by −30 % to −40 %. Unlike NO2, PM10 was not significantly affected due to the compensation of decreased emissions from traffic by increased emissions from domestic heating and/or by changes in atmospheric chemistry enhancing secondary aerosol formation.
Bart Degraeuwe, Enrico Pisoni, and Philippe Thunis
Geosci. Model Dev., 13, 5725–5736, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-5725-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-5725-2020, 2020
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To make decisions on how to improve air quality, it is useful to identify the main sources of pollution for an area of interest. Often these sources of pollution are identified with complex models that, even if accurate, are time consuming and complex. In this work we use another approach, simplified models, to accomplish the same task. The results, computed with two different set of simplified models, show the main sources of pollution for selected cities, and the associated uncertainties.
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Short summary
We assess relevance and utility indicators by evaluating nine Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service models in calculated air pollutant values. For NO2, the results highlight difficulties at traffic stations. For PM2.5 and PM10 the bias and winter–summer gradients reveal issues. O3 evaluation shows that seasonal gradients are useful. Overall, the indicators reveal model limitations, yet there is a need to reconsider the strictness of some indicators for certain pollutants.
We assess relevance and utility indicators by evaluating nine Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring...