Evaluation of an air quality simulation of the Lower Fraser Valley—I. Meteorology

A state of the art nonhydrostatic meteorological model has been coupled with a meteorological preprocessor for use with an advanced photochemical model. The first application of the modelling system is to the Lower Fraser Valley region of British Columbia. The region is characterised by complex topography in a coastal environment, and provides a severe test of the capability of the meteorological model to handle the air flow in the valley. The model performance is evaluated using time series of surface meteorological data, tethersonde data and acoustic sonde measurements of mixed layer depths. A quantitative statistical evaluation shows that the model performs well, but improvements could be achieved with higher spatial resolution.