Development of an atmospheric chemistry model coupled to the PALM model system 6.0: Implementation and first applications

Abstract. In this article we describe the implementation of an online-coupled gas-phase chemistry model in the turbulence resolving PALM model system 6.0. The new chemistry model is part of the PALM-4U components (read: PALM for you; PALM for urban applications) which are designed for application of PALM model in the urban environment (Maronga et al., 2020). The latest version of the Kinetic PreProcessor (KPP, 2.2.3), has been utilised for the numerical integration of gas-phase chemical reactions. A number of tropospheric gas-phase chemistry mechanisms of different complexity have been implemented ranging from the photostationary state to more complex mechanisms such as CBM4, which includes major pollutants namely O₃, NO, NO₂, CO, a simplified VOC chemistry and a small number of products. Further mechanisms can also be easily added by the user. In this work, we provide a detailed description of the chemistry model, its structure along with its various features, input requirements, its application and limitations. A case study is presented to demonstrate the application of the new chemistry model in the urban environment. The computation domain of the case study is comprised of part of Berlin, Germany, covering an area of 6.71 × 6.71 km with a horizontal resolution of 10 m. We used "PARAMETERIZED" emission mode of the chemistry model that only considers emissions from traffic sources. Three chemical mechanisms of varying complexity and one no-reaction (passive) case have been applied and results are compared with observations from two permanent air quality stations in Berlin that fall within the computation domain. The results show importance of online photochemistry and dispersion of air pollutants in the urban boundary layer. The simulated NO_x and O₃ species show reasonable agreement with observations. The agreement is better during midday and poorest during the evening transition hours and at night. CBM4 and SMOG mechanisms show better agreement with observations than the steady state PHSTAT mechanism.