A Reduced-order Photo-chemical Air Quality Model

We report on a reduced-order photo-chemical model (TAPOM-Lite) designed for calculating ozone levels for varying urban scenarios and calibrated for the city of Geneva, Switzerland. The TAPOM-Lite model is an atmospheric-environmental model designed to be incorporated into a larger energy-economy-environment (E 3) model and run in an optimization framework. The motivation for the TAPOM-Lite model was the design of a fast ozone calculator needed for the CPU intensive optimization environment where many iterations are potentially required before a best solution is found. Three principal advances in this model are (1) a simplified chemical scheme for O 3 production, (2) linearization of the O 3 production function needed for the overseeing linear optimization program, and (3) the extraction of gradient (sensitivity) information calculated from the O 3 production function which in turn is needed as “directional” information in the optimization method. Results show that the TAPOM-Lite model is consistent with the full-scale TAPOM model throughout the optimization/iteration process. The TAPOM-Lite model provides a first coupled energy-economy-environment (E 3) program for optimization and also provides a framework for global applications, for example, the linking of global indicators (e.g. mean temperatures) and world energy consumption.