A numerical model of birch pollen emission and dispersion in the atmosphere. Model evaluation and sensitivity analysis - UTU Research Portal

A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal

A numerical model of birch pollen emission and dispersion in the atmosphere. Model evaluation and sensitivity analysis

Subtitle: Model evaluation and sensitivity analysis

Authors: Pilvi Siljamo, Mikhail Sofiev, Elena Filatova, Łukasz Grewling, Siegfried Jäger, Ekaterina Khoreva, Tapio Linkosalo, Sara Ortega Jimenez, Hanna Ranta, Auli Rantio-Lehtimäki, Anton Svetlov, Laura Veriankaite, Ekaterina Yakovleva, Jaakko Kukkonen

Publisher: Springer

Publication year: 2013

Journal: International Journal of Biometeorology

Journal name in source: International journal of biometeorology

Journal acronym: Int.J.Biometeorol.

Number in series: 1

Volume: 57

Issue: 1

First page : 125

Last page: 136

Number of pages: 12

ISSN: 1432-1254

eISSN: 1432-1254

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-012-0539-5

Abstract

An evaluation of performance of the System for Integrated modeLling of Atmospheric coMposition (SILAM) in application to birch pollen dispersion is presented. The system is described in a companion paper whereas the current study evaluates the model sensitivity to details of the pollen emission module parameterisation and to the meteorological input data. The most important parameters are highlighted. The reference year considered for the analysis is 2006. It is shown that the model is capable of predicting about two-thirds of allergenic alerts, with the odds ratio exceeding 12 for the best setup. Several other statistics corroborate with these estimations. Low-pollen concentration days are also predicted correctly in more than two-thirds of cases. The model experiences certain difficulties only with intermediate pollen concentrations. It is demonstrated that the most important input parameter is the near-surface temperature, the bias of which can easily jeopardise the results. The model sensitivity to random fluctuations of temperature is much lower. Other parameters important at various stages of pollen development, release, and dispersion are precipitation and ambient humidity, as well as wind direction.