NEAQS: New England Air Quality Study - International Transport and Continental Transformation (ITCT) 2004 Field Program

The 2004 Field Season will see the coordination of two NOAA programs, the New England Air Quality Study (NEAQS) and the International Transport and Continental Transformation (ITCT) Program under the umbrella of the International Consortium for Atmospheric Research on Transportation and Transformation (ICART²) to improve the linkage between the global transport and transformation of pollutants and the regional and continental impacts of air pollution. ETL contributes to a number of aspects of these programs.

Surface Network

The Surface Network Group cooradinates a multi-agency network of sensor sites throughout the northeast to observe the baseline meteorology and chemistry of the region.

High Resolution Ocean Flux Measurements

Models used to forecast and understand the transport and transformation of pollutants rely on parameterizations of physical environmental processes in order to approximate processes which can not be observered or measured. Improving these parameterizations is critical to the improvement of models. A suite of instruments aboard the R/V Brown during NEAQS will be used to improve the parameterization of meteorology and chemistry related to air quality in the region.

Model Forecast Comparison

This effort will compare model predictions with many of the special meteorological and chemical observations taken during ICARTT: NEAQS-ITCT. These comparisons will be used to assess the fidelity of meteorological and chemical parameterizations within the models. The web site is organized as a cross matrix of the observation types and the models. Each model's 00 and 12 UTC 48 hour forecast is shown as soon as it becomes available, and the data are then added to the plots on an hourly basis as they become available. Ensemble chemical and meteorological forecasts are also displayed, formed as the mean of the various models.