Long-term evaluation of surface air

pollution in CAMSRA and MERRA-2

global reanalyses over Europe
Motivation
· In the last two decades, reanalyses have become a
very powerful tool in modern Earth sciences.

· It is crucial to characterize the strengths and

limitations of these products, in particular at the
surface, where no in-situ chemical observations are
Development of a long-term air
assimilated. pollution dataset covering all the
European continent, by using
· The motivation behind the present study originated bias-correction techniques to
in the context of the ERC project EARLY-ADAPT combine atmospheric reanalyses
(https://early-adapt.eu/). with observational data.

· In the frame of said project, a pioneer health dataset

is currently being collected over Europe.

AS3.20 - Air Pollution Modelling - 26 May 2022 - EGU 2022 General Assembly
 Data & Methodology

CAMSRA (0.75° x 0.75°) Regridding to common

regular lat-lon grid at
0.2° x 0.2°

The evaluation is performed at daily-

MERRA-2 (0.5° x 0.625°) scale on a set of metrics, including the
(n)MB, (n)RMSE and the PCC.

Gridding to common
regular lat-lon grid
at 0.2° x 0.2°
AIRBASE GHOST
(2003-2012) Monthly-mean concentrations
AQ_eReporting are then obtained by computing
(2013-2020) the median across all stations.
Globally Harmonised QA filtering process
Observational to eliminate doubtful,
Surface Treatment unphysical or other
faulty data.

AS3.20 - Air Pollution Modelling - 26 May 2022 - EGU 2022 General Assembly
Statistics

· CAMSRA outperforms MERRA-2 at least for O3, CO and PM2.5, whereas for SO2 and PM10 both reanalysis
show a similar performance.

· As the computed statistics present strong spatiotemporal dependencies, given the long-term scope of the
evaluation, a country-level analysis has also been performed, as pollution patterns can vary significantly across
the European continent.

AS3.20 - Air Pollution Modelling - 26 May 2022 - EGU 2022 General Assembly
Ozone [O3]
Evaluation of O3 over Europe depicting:

a) Monthly time series of [O3], nMB, nRMSE and

PCC over the period 2003-2020;

b) Area-averaged [O3], nMB, nRMSE and PCC for

countries with at least 5 cells with observations;

c) Annual-mean [O3] climatology in CAMSRA;

d) Annual-mean [O3] climatology in MERRA-2;

e) Differences in annual-mean [O3] climatology

between CAMSRA and MERRA-2.
Fine particulate matter [PM2.5]
Evaluation of PM2.5 over Europe depicting:

a) Monthly time series of [PM2.5], nMB, nRMSE and

PCC over the period 2003-2020;

b) Area-averaged [PM2.5], nMB, nRMSE and PCC for

countries with at least 5 cells with observations;

c) Annual-mean [PM2.5] climatology in CAMSRA;

d) Annual-mean [PM2.5] climatology in MERRA-2;

e) Differences in annual-mean [PM2.5] climatology

between CAMSRA and MERRA-2.
Conclusions
➢ Significant and persistent biases are found in almost all the examined pollutants, both in CAMSRA and
MERRA-2 .

➢ Despite greater original resolution, MERRA-2 is generally outperformed by CAMSRA and displays
significantly less spatial variability in its concentration fields.

➢ Reactive gases present a much more homogenous behaviour across the European continent, whereas
aerosols show significant variations across countries.

➢ Data assimilation appears to be key in order to improve the reliability of AC reanalysis products.

➢ Persistent biases highlight the necessity of applying bias correction schemes when working with
atmospheric composition reanalysis data.

AS3.20 - Air Pollution Modelling - 26 May 2022 - EGU 2022 General Assembly
 Thank you!

Email: aleksander.lacima@bsc.es