Comprehensive Air Quality Model with Extensions: Formulation and Evaluation for Ozone and Particulate Matter over the US

Abstract

The Comprehensive Air Quality Model with extensions (CAMx) is an open-source, state-of-the-science photochemical grid model that addresses tropospheric air pollution (ozone, particulates, air toxics) over spatial scales ranging from neighborhoods to continents. CAMx has been in continuous development for over 25 years and has been used by numerous entities ranging from government to industry to academia to support regulatory actions and scientific research addressing a variety of air quality issues. Here, we describe the technical formulation of CAMx v7.20, publicly released in May 2022. To illustrate an example of regional and seasonal model performance for predicted ozone and fine particulate matter (PM2.5), we summarize a model evaluation from a recent 2016 national-scale CAMx application over nine climate zones contained within the conterminous US. We show that statistical performance for warm season maximum 8 h ozone is consistently within benchmark statistical criteria for bias, gross error, and correlation over all climate zones, and often near statistical goals. Statistical performance for 24 h PM2.5 and constituents fluctuate around statistical criteria with more seasonal and regional variability that can be attributed to different sources of uncertainty among PM2.5 species (e.g., weather influences, chemical treatments and interactions, emissions uncertainty, and ammonia treatments). We close with a mention of new features and capabilities that are planned for the next public releases of the model in 2024 and beyond.

Keywords

• CAMx
• air quality
• grid modeling
• photochemistry
• ozone
• PM_2.5