REGIONAL OZONE IN THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN: HOW WELL DO MODELS PERFORM? A COMPARISON BETWEEN PUBLISHED MODEL RESULTS AND OBSERVATIONS

摘要

There are not many published results from regional modeling for the Eastern Mediterranean. These limited publications are examined with regard to the agreement of the modeled ozone distributions with recent datasets that become available from rural sites in the area. Possible reasons for the large discrepancies between modeled and measured summertime ozone levels are discussed, and it is concluded that a targeted modeling effort is needed to explain the differences satisfactorily and achieve an improvement of the used models. Such an effort should require comparison of the modeled distributions of ozone, its precursors and meteorological parameters both at the surface and in the vertical within the area of interest.