A regional air quality forecasting system over Europe: the MACC-II daily ensemble production

Marécal, V.; Peuch, V.-H.; Andersson, C.; Andersson, S.; Arteta, J.; Beekmann, M.; Benedictow, A.; Bergström, R.; Bessagnet, B.; Cansado, A.; Chéroux, F.; Colette, A.; Coman, A.; Curier, R. L.; Denier van der Gon, H. A. C.; Drouin, A.; Elbern, H.; Emili, E.; Engelen, R. J.; Eskes, H. J.; Foret, G.; Friese, E.; Gauss, M.; Giannaros, C.; Guth, J.; Joly, M.; Jaumouillé, E.; Josse, B.; Kadygrov, N.; Kaiser, J. W.; Krajsek, K.; Kuenen, J.; Kumar, U.; Liora, N.; Lopez, E.; Malherbe, L.; Martinez, I.; Melas, D.; Meleux, F.; Menut, L.; Moinat, P.; Morales, T.; Parmentier, J.; Piacentini, A.; Plu, M.; Poupkou, A.; Queguiner, S.; Robertson, L.; Rouïl, L.; Schaap, M.; Segers, A.; Sofiev, M.; Tarasson, L.; Thomas, M.; Timmermans, R.; Valdebenito, Á.; van Velthoven, P.; van Versendaal, R.; Vira, J.; Ung, A.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-8-2777-2015

Articles | Volume 8, issue 9

https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-8-2777-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Special issue:

Monitoring atmospheric composition and climate, research in...

https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-8-2777-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 8, issue 9

Model experiment description paper

|

08 Sep 2015

Model experiment description paper |

| 08 Sep 2015

A regional air quality forecasting system over Europe: the MACC-II daily ensemble production

V. Marécal, V.-H. Peuch, C. Andersson, S. Andersson, J. Arteta, M. Beekmann, A. Benedictow, R. Bergström, B. Bessagnet, A. Cansado, F. Chéroux, A. Colette, A. Coman, R. L. Curier, H. A. C. Denier van der Gon, A. Drouin, H. Elbern, E. Emili, R. J. Engelen, H. J. Eskes, G. Foret, E. Friese, M. Gauss, C. Giannaros, J. Guth, M. Joly, E. Jaumouillé, B. Josse, N. Kadygrov, J. W. Kaiser, K. Krajsek, J. Kuenen, U. Kumar, N. Liora, E. Lopez, L. Malherbe, I. Martinez, D. Melas, F. Meleux, L. Menut, P. Moinat, T. Morales, J. Parmentier, A. Piacentini, M. Plu, A. Poupkou, S. Queguiner, L. Robertson, L. Rouïl, M. Schaap, A. Segers, M. Sofiev, L. Tarasson, M. Thomas, R. Timmermans, Á. Valdebenito, P. van Velthoven, R. van Versendaal, J. Vira, and A. Ung

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Final revised paper (published on 08 Sep 2015)
Preprint (discussion started on 11 Mar 2015)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC C408: 'Referee Comments', Anonymous Referee #1, 08 Apr 2015
- AC C1400: 'Response to referee 1', Virginie Marécal, 15 Jul 2015
RC C578: 'Review of the manuscript by V Marecal et al.', Anonymous Referee #2, 29 Apr 2015
- AC C1401: 'Response to referee 2', Virginie Marécal, 15 Jul 2015

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Virginie Marécal on behalf of the Authors (15 Jul 2015) Author's response

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (20 Jul 2015) by Axel Lauer

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (17 Aug 2015)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

The revision generally improved the manuscript.

The abstract and the conclusions should include quantitative measures of forecast performance.

For example, it seems that diurnal ozone peak is underestimated by the ENSEMBLE by about 4 ug/m3 during 1 June to 1 September 2014. The underestimation is larger during ozone episodes, such as during 9-15 June 2014, when the ENSEMBLE underestimates ozone peak by about 10 ug/m3.

The statement on L. 773-774: “ozone median values are often lower during daytime peaks than the observations by 30 to 50 μg m-3” is very important and should be reflected in the abstract and in the conclusions.

Otherwise, there are mostly minor issues left to address.

L 65: robust to the lack of one model --> robust to reduction of ensemble size by one, that is if predictions are unavailable from one model

L375-377 “The assimilation processing is a very robust one, giving good results but it can be improved with a better spatialization of the correction.” These are very qualitative statements. Suggest either omitting or quantifying these statements. Maybe they can be presented as model strengths in comparison to other ensemble members.

L 570: Missing period?

L 571-573: “Using the same vertical resolution as the IFS model may not only be an advantage as the MATCH model has been developed mainly using HIRLAM data and it could not be excluded that some tuning towards a coarser vertical resolution may have been done.” Reword for clarity.

L 871-872: “there is no day-to-day degradation of MB, MNMB, RMSE and FGE indicators from Day0 to Day3.” This statement needs to be corrected: RMS is increasing with forecast length.

L 944: significant --> typical (reserve term significant for statistical significance)

L 948: rather be an under than overestimate --> be an underestimate, rather than an overestimate,

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (Editor review) (21 Aug 2015) by Axel Lauer

Dear authors,

Thank you for revising your manuscript. Before your paper can be accepted for publication, I would like to ask you to take into account the new and rather minor comments from reviewer #2. Please find below a list of these comments.

Thank you,

Axel Lauer

----------------------------------------------------

The revision generally improved the manuscript.

The abstract and the conclusions should include quantitative measures of forecast performance.

For example, it seems that diurnal ozone peak is underestimated by the ENSEMBLE by about 4 ug/m3 during 1 June to 1 September 2014. The underestimation is larger during ozone episodes, such as during 9-15 June 2014, when the ENSEMBLE underestimates ozone peak by about 10 ug/m3.

The statement on L. 773-774: “ozone median values are often lower during daytime peaks than the observations by 30 to 50 μg m-3” is very important and should be reflected in the abstract and in the conclusions.

Otherwise, there are mostly minor issues left to address.

L 65: robust to the lack of one model --> robust to reduction of ensemble size by one, that is if predictions are unavailable from one model

L375-377 “The assimilation processing is a very robust one, giving good results but it can be improved with a better spatialization of the correction.” These are very qualitative statements. Suggest either omitting or quantifying these statements. Maybe they can be presented as model strengths in comparison to other ensemble members.

L 570: Missing period?

L 571-573: “Using the same vertical resolution as the IFS model may not only be an advantage as the MATCH model has been developed mainly using HIRLAM data and it could not be excluded that some tuning towards a coarser vertical resolution may have been done.” Reword for clarity.

L 871-872: “there is no day-to-day degradation of MB, MNMB, RMSE and FGE indicators from Day0 to Day3.” This statement needs to be corrected: RMS is increasing with forecast length.

L 944: significant --> typical (reserve term significant for statistical significance)

L 948: rather be an under than overestimate --> be an underestimate, rather than an overestimate,

Hide

AR by Virginie Marécal on behalf of the Authors (24 Aug 2015) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (26 Aug 2015) by Axel Lauer

AR by Virginie Marécal on behalf of the Authors (26 Aug 2015) Manuscript

Short summary

This paper describes the air quality forecasting system over Europe put in place in the Monitoring Atmospheric Composition and Climate projects. It provides daily and 4-day forecasts and analyses for the previous day for major gas and particulate pollutants and their main precursors. These products are based on a multi-model approach using seven state-of-the-art models developed in Europe. An evaluation of the performance of the system is discussed in the paper.