Mechanistic Soil Nitrogen Emissions Module for CMAQ

A 12-km spatial grid model simulates nitric oxide, nitrous acid, nitrous oxide, and ammonia soil emissions across continental North America. The dataset provides source code, input files, and example outputs for a single day in 2011, developed by NASA. It integrates a new mechanistic soil nitrogen module with the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model version 5.1.

Use Cases

• Calibrating and validating the CMAQ model's soil nitrogen emissions component using the provided source code and input data.
• Analyzing spatial patterns of soil-emitted nitric oxide (NO) and ammonia (NH3) across the 12-km North American grid.
• Studying the mechanistic drivers of nitrous oxide (N2O) and nitrous acid (HONO) soil fluxes for a specific date (April 21, 2011).
• Integrating high-quality 2011 reference data on land use, soil pH, and denitrification rates into other air quality simulations.

Strengths

• Model inputs are derived from high-quality reference sources for the year 2011.
• Provides a mechanistic framework for simulating four key nitrogen compounds (NO, HONO, N2O, NH3).
• Covers a large, continental-scale domain at a detailed 12-km spatial resolution.

Limitations

• Example model output is limited to a single day (April 21, 2011), providing no multi-temporal analysis.
• Sources conflict on the last updated date, with one platform listing 2026-03-13 and another listing 2011-04-21.
• Specific column names, row counts, and dataset size are not provided by any source.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Mechanistic model simulation using the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model framework.

Time Range

2011-04-21

Freshness

2026-03-13 00:43:17.342363

Geography

Continental USA plus portions of northern Mexico and southern Canada, from 25 to 52 degrees north.