The Atmospheric Composition (AC) group aims at better understanding the chemical composition of the atmosphere and its effects upon air quality, weather and climate, while improving predictions from local to global scales. We address this goal through the development and use of the in-house Multiscale Nonhydrostatic AtmospheRe CHemistry model (MONARCH), and the European Community Earth System Model EC-Earth. The group is the research backbone of the well-known CALIOPE system, which provides high-resolution short-term air quality forecasts for Europe, with a special focus on Spain and its main urban areas using the in-house HERMES emission model. The group is also the research backbone of the WMO Regional Specialized Meteorological Center for Atmospheric Sand and Dust Forecast, the Barcelona Dust Regional Center.
Our models and forecasts are enhanced by an intensive use of up-to-date observations, both for model evaluation and to feed our aerosol ensemble-based data assimilation system. Our research focuses on urban air quality, and atmospheric chemistry and aerosols from regional to global scales, with an emphasis on mineral dust. Since October 2016, the group hosts an AXA Chair on Sand and Dust Storms. This 15-year research programme is not only intended to support the WMO Regional Center based at BSC, but also to widen the scope and relevance of the mineral dust research in the group.
The AC Group is structured around four interactive research teams:
We interact closely with the Computational Earth Sciences group on the optimization of model codes, pre- and post-processing tools, and operational model settings, with the Climate Variability and Change group on the links between atmospheric aerosols and climate, mainly in the framework of the EC-Earth model, and with the Earth System Services group to enhance the use of our forecasts products in key socio-economics sectors.
Below is an index facilitating the navigation between the different wiki and external pages related to AC activities. Some of these links are related to the AC group itself, others are related to the different AC teams, others are related to the different AC cross-cutting working groups (WG).
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On this page you will find information about the activities of the group, its organisation and its way to work.
How the AC group is structured? The AC group is structured into 4 teams - AC-EMIS (emissions), AC-CHEM (atmospheric chemistry and air quality), AC-CLIM (dust, aerosol and climate), AC-DAFA (data assimilation, forecasting and applications) - and 4 cross-cutting working groups (WG) - WG models, WG observations and evaluation, WG artificial intelligence, WG operationals.
How people work and interact? In their daily work:
When do people meet? The AC group meetings occur on a monthly frequency. Then each AC team and each AC working group is organising regular meetings at a specific frequency (typically from 2 to 4 weeks). Regular AC-CES meetings are also organised. Besides the AC group meeting and their AC team meeting, each AC member is free to participate to the other aforementioned regular meetings, according to his/her interests (regularly or sporadically). All these regular meetings are advertized in the AC group calendar. More specifically, everyone is free to join the other team meetings (many research lines overlap different AC teams). On top of these regular meetings, additional meetings are typically organised around projects or group of projects.
Who should I contact if I have a question or issue? For questions or issues related to your computer, your email, your agenda, etc., you can contact Albert Vila Miró (by email at albert.vila@bsc.es or on slack). For general questions or issues related to HPC, installation, modules, packages, etc., you can open an issue in the so-called request Gitlab. For any other questions or issues, you can ask on the department slack channel) or to the AC slack channel). If any doubt, simply ask your team leader on slack.
Here is the list of models and tools developed in the group:
Running some of these models on High-Performance Computing (HPC) infrastructures requires building relatively complex pipelines. In the AC group, this is done using the autosubmit tool (ReadTheDocs) developed in the department. More specifically, this tool is adapted for each pipeline (named with the “auto-” prefix), including: