A modified gas-phase scheme for advanced regional climate modelling with RegCM4

Climate models in the past decades have been developed to such an extent to include atmospheric chemistry as part of their climate simulations. This is necessary for providing policy-makers and other stakeholders with reliable atmospheric projections as well as information about changes in chemical species as a consequence of climate change. The regional climate model (RCM), RegCM4 is a community model which contains only one gas-phase mechanism module (CBM-Z) that includes the formation, deposition, and transport of a number of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). In this paper, the CB6-C, a new gas-phase mechanism module, is combined with RegCM4 to produce a larger suite of VOCs and chemical mechanisms for important anthropogenic and biogenic species, most notably benzene, terpenes, acetylene and their corresponding oxidation products. In order to evaluate this new module, climatologies of the CB6-C and CBM-Z simulations are compared to gridded and station data. The results reveal the two schemes to be similar with some improvement of surface carbon monoxide and tropospheric ozone in the CB6-C. However, organic products were found to be under-predicted for both schemes, suggesting the need of more development in the implementation of atmospheric chemistry in RegCM4. Despite its limitations, the input conditions (emissions and boundary conditions) are easy to modify, making the new gas-phase scheme an important advancement in the modelling of atmospheric chemistry within a RCM, as it provides a pathway for new research that may eventually help health studies.

Automated summary

Climate models now include atmospheric chemistry to provide policy-makers with reliable atmospheric projections. The study combines a new gas-phase module with a regional climate model to improve predictions of chemical species. Results show improvements in surface carbon monoxide and tropospheric ozone, but limitations in predicting organic products suggest further development is needed. Despite this, the new gas-phase scheme represents an important advancement in atmospheric chemistry modeling within a regional climate model.