Ozone, UV and Aerosol studies
Atmospheric modelling
Atmospheric modelling generates physical and numerical measurements of climate parameters, it quantifies changes of atmospheric phenomena over space and time, and it predicts their occurrences. Modelled data sets are essential for examining the driving forces of atmospheric phenomena and for performing in-depth analysis of pressing issues.
In this research group we focus on long and short-range atmospheric transport modelling, taking into account chemical transformations and deposition of different types of substances. At the RMI, we are using the chemistry transport models CHIMERE and the Finnish model SILAM (System for Integrated modeLling of Atmospheric coMposition).
With these type of models, we are able to conceptually simulate different atmospheric processes. Having good knowledge of the anthropogenic and biogenic emissions, we simulate the atmospheric chemistry, i.e. the transformation of pollutants in the air, the pathways of atmospheric transport and deposition at different scales. As input for these models, we use meteorological data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) or RMI in-house collected or processed meteorological data (ALADIN/ALARO/AROME).
With the SILAM model, we mainly model large biogenic aerosols such as allergenic airborne birch and grass pollen amounts for Belgium.
CHIMERE is mainly used for the simulation of air pollutants in the lower atmosphere: NOx, ozone, particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5).
More information on the modelling of airborne allergenic pollen can be found here.