Long-term simulations of photo oxidant pollution over Portugal using the CHIMERE model

This work examines the performance of the CHIMERE photochemical model in simulating ozone and nitrogen dioxide in Portugal over a long-term summer period. The analysis focuses on comparisons against the available measurements during the 2001 summer season. The meteorological forcing of the model is given by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), and the emission inventory used was obtained with a top-down methodology updated for the simulation year.Despite the coarse resolution of the meteorological data, the complex topography and coastal location of Portugal, the results obtained show that the modelling system is able to reproduce the nitrogen dioxide and ozone episodes that occurred during the simulated summer period. Mean error and correlation improve when considering the sum of photo oxidant instead of individual pollutants, indicating that a significant part of the model error is due to either the lack of representativeness of monitoring stations or to inaccuracies in the emission inventory.