Development and Verification of TAPM

Abstract

TAPM consists of an inline, nested, prognostic meteorological and air pollution model that solves the fundamental equations of atmospheric flow, thermodynamics, moisture conservation, turbulence and dispersion, wherever practical, for horizontal modelling domains of up to 1,500 km in size and horizontal grid spacing typically from 30 km down to 300 m for meteorology, with optionally even finer grid spacing for air pollution. The meteorological component of the model is nested within large-scale analyses/forecasts, which drive the model at the boundaries of the outer grid. The use of integrated modules for plume rise, Lagrangian particle, building wake, and Eulerian grids with condensed chemistry schemes, allows industrial and urban air pollution to be modelled accurately at fine resolution for long simulations. TAPM has been verified for a number of Australian and international datasets, and results from these studies have shown good model performance for both meteorology and air pollution predictions, particularly for the study of annual extreme (high) concentrations important for environmental impact assessments. In this paper, the development and verification of TAPM V3 will be summarised, along with current development and verification studies that will eventually be available in a future version of TAPM. These new developments will include options for more complete land surface schemes and global datasets for soil and vegetative canopies, enhanced turbulence schemes, and the addition of several comprehensive meteorology and turbulence and air pollution verification datasets.