Wenfu Tang (NCAR/ACOM), Mary Barth (NCAR/ACOM/MMM), Louisa Emmons (NCAR/ACOM), Rajesh Kumar (NCAR/RAL), Gabriele Pfister (NCAR/ACOM), and Simone Tilmes (NCAR/ACOM)

The Multiscale Infrastructure for Chemistry and Aerosols (MUSICA) will become a computationally feasible global modeling framework that allows for the simulation of large-scale atmospheric phenomena, while still resolving chemistry at emission- and exposure- relevant scales. Version 0 of MUSICA is a configuration of CESM (CAMchem) with comprehensive tropospheric and stratospheric chemistry using the spectral element dynamical core with regional refinement over specified regions. MUSICA V0 has been developed for several regions of the world, including India, South America, eastern Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, and the contiguous US (CONUS). While MUSICA V0 simulations are continually evaluated with available ground, satellite, and aircraft observations, a detailed statistical comparison with WRF-Chem over the same regions has yet to be performed. We use the MUSICA V0 simulation with ~14-km grid spacing over CONUS and compare modeled spatial and temporal variability of major pollutants (CO, NO2, PM2.5, and O3) with the 12-km CONUS WRF-Chem near-realtime predictions of air quality. The comparisons show that MUSICA V0 is capable of representing regional-scale variabilities comparable to WRF-Chem and hence has the capability to resolve regional-scale phenomena). MUSICA continues to be developed in the CESM (CAMchem) framework where we are beginning to test simulations with the MPAS dynamical core with regional refinement.