Simulation of Some Air Pollutants and Weather Parameters Using WRF/Chem Model in Cairo and Qena Cities/ Egypt

Weather Research & Forecasting/ Chemistry model (WRF/Chem) has been used for simulation of air pollutants and weather parameters in Cairo (urban) and Qena (suburb) regions/ Egypt. Surface ozone (O3), Nitrogen oxides (NOx) and Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) as well as Wind speed (WS), Wind direction (WD) and Temperature (T) have been simulated in Cairo. While in Qena, only (O3), (WS), (WD) and (T) have been simulated. Different prediction performance measures have been used to assess the accuracy of estimation of these parameters. The study showed that the model can simulate the diurnal variation of ozone in Cairo better than that in Qena, although the best quantitative estimates of ozone were found in Qena. The model failed in quantitative and qualitative estimation of NOx and NO2 in Cairo as these pollutants affected directly by traffic intensity. The model estimated the weather parameters in acceptable accuracy in both Cairo and Qena especially WS and T. It is clear that WRF/Chem model cannot generally simulate the chemical parameters in high polluted regions such as Cairo. This may be resulted from the coarse resolution used for the input meteorological and emission data (1o latitude X 1o longitude). While, it can be used safely in rural and suburban regions such as Qena. Using fine coarse resolution for meteorology and emission data may improve the results.