Simulations of the spatiotemporal distribution of air constituents such as ozone and NO₂ on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) can be affected by many factors such as the altitude of the observational site. In the present study, we used a mesoscale meteorological model coupled with chemistry (WRF-Chem) with two different anthropogenic emission inventories (MEIC and MEIC + EDGAR), to investigate the association of the simulation accuracy of ozone and NO₂ on TP with the altitude of the observational sites. Statistical parameters such as the correlation coefficient (r) and the index of agreement (IOA) were also calculated to evaluate the model performance in capturing the concentration change of these two air constituents (i.e., ozone and NO₂). The results revealed that when only the MEIC emission inventory is implemented, the deviation between the model simulations and the observations becomes larger with the increase of the altitude of the city. Moreover, it was also found that when the EDGAR emission inventory was added into the model (i.e., MEIC + EDGAR scenario), the negative dependence of the simulation accuracy of ozone on the altitude becomes weaker than that using only MEIC inventory, due to the change in ozone simulations in high-altitude cities. In contrast, simulation results of NO₂ using two different emission inventories were found to be similar to each other.
 

Tibetan Plateau,WRF-Chem,MEIC,EDGAR