Development of the RAQM2 aerosol chemical transport model and predictions of the Northeast Asian aerosol mass, size, chemistry, and mixing type

Kajino, Mizuo*; Inomata, Yayoi*; Sato, Keiichi*; Ueda, Hiromasa*; Han, Z.*; An, J.*; Katata, Genki; Deushi, Makoto*; Maki, Takashi*; Oshima, Naga*; et al.

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 12(24), p.11833 - 11856, 2012/12

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-12-11833-2012

A new aerosol chemical transport model, Regional Air Quality Model 2 (RAQM2), was developed to simulate Asian air quality. We implemented a simple version of a modal-moment aerosol dynamics model and achieved completely dynamic solution of a gas-to-particle mass transfer over a wide range of aerosol diameters from 1 nm to super micro m. To consider a variety of atmospheric aerosol properties, a category approach is utilized: aerosols are distributed into 4 categories, Aitken, accumulation, soot aggregates, and coarse mode. A regional-scale simulation was performed for the entire year of 2006, covering Northeast Asian region. Statistical analysis showed the model reproduced the regional-scale transport and transformation of the major inorganic anthropogenic and natural air constituents within factors of 2 to 5. Modeled size distributions of total weight and chemical components were consistent with the observations, indicating simulations of aerosol mixing types were successful.