USING A BOX-GRS MODEL TO STUDY THE ROLE OF INPUT PARAMETERS ON ESTIMATED PEAK O3 HOURLY CONCENTRATIONS

BIKIEL, DAMIAN E.; PINEDA ROJAS, ANDREA L.

Brujas

Conferencia; HARMO2019; 2019

Initiative on Harmonisation within Atmospheric Dispersion Modelling for Regulatory Purposes

The Generic Reaction Set (GRS) [1] is a simplified photochemical scheme that allows estimation of ozone (O3) concentrations resulting from emissions nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in urban areas. Due to its acceptable performance, low computational cost and less detailed input data required compared to more complex chemical schemes, the GRS has been included in the algorithms of several atmospheric dispersion models [2-5]. Despite of its simplicity, the sensitivity of the modelled O3 concentration to the scheme input parameters is hard to anticipate because of the number of variables affecting both the reaction rate coefficients and the species initial concentrations, and the non-linear relationship between them. Sensitivity studies can help to identify the variables that can be improved to obtain better model results and also to have a better grasp of the propagation of errors within the model in which the scheme is included. In this work, a local sensitivity analysis was performed using a box-GRS model to study the role of each parameter on the maximum ozone concentration achieved under different conditions.