Comparison of the EMEP, RADM2 and RACM mechanisms

A comparison of the atmospheric chemistry mechanisms EMEP (Co-operative Programme for Monitoring and Evaluation of the Long-Range Transmission of Air Pollutants in Europe), RADM2 (Regional Acid Deposition Model, version 2) and RACM (Regional Atmospheric Chemistry Mechanism) has been conducted. Each mechanism was used to simulate the PLUME case of Kuhn et al. (1998) and to simulate an additional 150 and 81 scenarios with and without emissions, respectively. These simulations covered scenarios that ranged from relatively clean, through rural and polluted urban conditions. Ozone isopleths and scatter plots were generated from the simulations. The mechanisms were compared primarily on the basis of calculated ozone and ozone precursor concentrations. For the gas-phase ozone precursors the differences between the mechanisms were rather small under clean conditions and more significant under polluted conditions. The differences were especially significant for the concentrations of NO2 and organic peroxy radicals. In general the EMEP mechanism yielded the most ozone and the RADM2 mechanism yielded the least. Furthermore the results suggest that a broad range simulation conditions should be used to compare mechanisms and not just a few selected scenarios.