Assimilation of PM Ground Measurements: Looking for Optimal Settings for the PM Forecasts

PM10 forecasts for Europe and the Netherlands are part of the daily LOTOS-EUROS products, next to ozone forecasts. So far, ozone ground observations and OMI NO2 column observations were assimilated in the forecasting system, using an Ensemble Kalman filter. Previous studies have shown that assimilation of daily PM10 ground observations improve the PM forecasts. Ideally, ozone, NO2, AOD and PM10 can be assimilated within one analysis. If we want to combine ozone and PM assimilation in one system, assimilation of hourly PM observations is needed and the model system was extended by assimilation of PM10 and PM2.5 ground observations.