Validation of a mesoscale meteorological simulation over Po Valley

Very high secondary pollution concentrations often occur in Northern Italy, due to the density of anthropogenic emissions and frequent stagnant meteorological conditions that characterise the area. In such a situation it is important to use Chemical Transport Models (CTMs), to properly describe phenomena bringing to pollution formation and accumulation. Meteorological models are one of the drivers of CTMs and, due to their complexity, require high computational costs to be run. Within the HPC-EUROPA (Pan-European Research Infrastructure on High Performance Computing) project, the meteorological fields over Northern Italy have been simulated using RAMS, creating a database for future air quality assessments.