Back to Search
Start Over
Extension of WRF-Chem for birch pollen modelling - a case study for Poland
- Source :
- Print: 0020-7128, International Journal of Biometeorology
- Publication Year :
- 2020
-
Abstract
- In recent years, allergies due to airborne pollen allergens have shown an increasing trend, along with the severity of allergic symptoms in most industrialized countries, while synergism with other common atmospheric pollutants has also been identified as affecting the overall quality of citizenly life. In this study, we propose the state-of-the-art WRF-Chem model, which is a complex Eulerian meteorological model integrated on-line with atmospheric chemistry. We used a combination of the WRF-Chem extended towards birch pollen, and the emission module based on heating degree days, which has not been tested before. The simulations were run for the moderate season in terms of birch pollen concentrations (year 2015) and high season (year 2016) over Central Europe, which were validated against 11 observational stations located in Poland. The results show that there is a big difference in the model’s performance for the two modelled years. In general, the model overestimates birch pollen concentrations for the moderate season and highly underestimates birch pollen concentrations for the year 2016. The model was able to predict birch pollen concentrations for first allergy symptoms (above 20 pollen m−3) as well as for severe symptoms (above 90 pollen m−3) with probability of detection at 0.78 and 0.68 and success ratio at 0.75 and 0.57, respectively for the year 2015. However, the model failed to reproduce these parameters for the year 2016. The results indicate the potential role of correcting the total seasonal pollen emission in improving the model’s performance, especially for specific years in terms of pollen productivity. The application of chemical transport models such as WRF-Chem for pollen modelling provides a great opportunity for simultaneous simulations of chemical air pollution and allergic pollen with one goal, which is a step forward for studying and understanding the co-exposure of these particles in the air.
- Subjects :
- Atmospheric Science
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences
Chemical transport model
Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis
Birch pollen
Air pollution
010501 environmental sciences
medicine.disease_cause
Atmospheric sciences
Q1
01 natural sciences
Pollen
medicine
otorhinolaryngologic diseases
Chemical transportmodel
Air concentrations
Betula
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
Original Paper
Ecology
Pollen season
food and beverages
Allergens
Europe
Productivity (ecology)
13. Climate action
Atmospheric chemistry
Weather Research and Forecasting Model
Environmental science
Poland
Heating degree day
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 14321254
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Print: 0020-7128, International Journal of Biometeorology
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....ca5f6d305499565a1326c3da9894b51f