2.6 Model limits

Metphomod was written to simulate summer smog situations with clear sky weather conditions. Its application therefore has some limits:

• The model does not include map projections and map coordinates. Reasonable domain sizes therefore are limited to some hundreds of kilometers.
• It does not contain parameterizations for scavenging and heterogeneous processes and is therefore limited to dry weather conditions and gas phase chemistry.
• Stable clouds (stratus type) can be simulated, but at the moment a link between the cloud and the radiation module is missing. To account for these effects, the radiation can be manually scaled to a realistic value. No parametrisation for cumulus type clouds exists at the moment.
• The turbulence parameterizations used in the model do no longer hold true for very small grid sizes. These these limits are still subject to the present scientific discussion.