Evaluation of the performance of four chemical transport models in predicting the aerosol chemical composition in Europe in 2005

© Author(s) 2016.Four regional chemistry transport models were applied to simulate the concentration and composition of particulate matter (PM) in Europe for 2005 with horizontal resolution 20 km. The modelled concentrations were compared with the measurements of PM chemical composition by the European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (EMEP) monitoring network. All models systematically underestimated PM10 and PM2:5 by 10–60 %, depending on the model and the season of the year, when the calculated dry PM mass was compared with the measurements. The average water content at laboratory conditions was estimated between 5 and 20% for PM2:5 and between 10 and 25% for PM10. For majority of the PM chemical components, the relative underestimation was smaller than it was for total PM, exceptions being the carbonaceous particles and mineral dust. Some species, such as sea salt and NO3, were overpredicted by the models. There were notable differences between the models’ predictions of the seasonal variations of PM, mainly attributable to different treatments or omission of some source categories and aerosol processes. Benzo(a)pyrene concentrations were overestimated by all the models over the whole year. The study stresses the importance of improving the models’ skill in simulating mineral dust and carbonaceous compounds, necessity for high-quality emissions from wildland fires, as well as the need for an explicit consideration of aerosol water content in model–measurement comparison.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

High Speed Intensified Video Observations of TLEs in Support of PhOCAL

The third observing season of PhOCAL (Physical Origins of Coupling to the upper Atmosphere by Lightning) was conducted over the U.S. High Plains during the late spring and summer of 2013. The goal was to capture using an intensified high-speed camera, a transient luminous event (TLE), especially a sprite, as well as its parent cloud-to-ground (SP+CG) lightning discharge, preferably within the domain of a 3-D lightning mapping array (LMA). The co-capture of sprite and its SP+CG was achieved within useful range of an interferometer operating near Rapid City. Other high-speed sprite video sequences were captured above the West Texas LMA. On several occasions the large mesoscale convective complexes (MCSs) producing the TLE-class lightning were also generating vertically propagating convectively generated gravity waves (CGGWs) at the mesopause which were easily visible using NIR-sensitive color cameras. These were captured concurrent with sprites. These observations were follow-ons to a case on 15 April 2012 in which CGGWs were also imaged by the new Day/Night Band on the Suomi NPP satellite system. The relationship between the CGGW and sprite initiation are being investigated. The past year was notable for a large number of elve+halo+sprite sequences sequences generated by the same parent CG. And on several occasions there appear to be prominent banded modulations of the elves' luminosity imaged at >3000 ips. These stripes appear coincident with the banded CGGW structure, and presumably its density variations. Several elves and a sprite from negative CGs were also noted. New color imaging systems have been tested and found capable of capturing sprites. Two cases of sprites with an aurora as a backdrop were also recorded. High speed imaging was also provided in support of the UPLIGHTS program near Rapid City, SD and the USAFA SPRITES II airborne campaign over the Great Plains

A proteomics sample metadata representation for multiomics integration and big data analysis

The amount of public proteomics data is rapidly increasing but there is no standardized format to describe the sample metadata and their relationship with the dataset files in a way that fully supports their understanding or reanalysis. Here we propose to develop the transcriptomics data format MAGE-TAB into a standard representation for proteomics sample metadata. We implement MAGE-TAB-Proteomics in a crowdsourcing project to manually curate over 200 public datasets. We also describe tools and libraries to validate and submit sample metadata-related information to the PRIDE repository. We expect that these developments will improve the reproducibility and facilitate the reanalysis and integration of public proteomics datasets.publishedVersio