The REGIONAL cluster is devoted to the provision and further development of operational products describing regional climate, solar and UV radiation, and air quality. Forecasts, near-real time analyses and reanalyses are produced at the European scale for a better understanding and anticipation of air pollution events and for better provision of solar information. The cluster has the twin aims of addressing the general information needs of the European Commission, national authorities and public and of supplying data to downstream services that provide more local or user-specific products.

The full service is based on four sub-projects:

• R-EDA sub-project provides relevant data-assimilation methodologies to be implemented in the operational sub-projects.
• R-ENS products are air quality forecasts and near real time analyses of ground level air pollutant concentrations, issued from numerical simulations;
• R-EVA products are regional air quality reanalyses based on assimilation of validated observational data in chemistry-transport models and air quality assessment reports;
• R-RAD products are surface UV forecasts and solar resource assessments based on high resolution models and earth observations. They will address public awareness and renewable-energy questions;

The cluster of regional components

The air-quality products are created using an ensemble approach involving seven European chemistry-transport models well-known for their capacity to provide relevant regional air-quality predictions: SILAM (FMI), EURAD (FRIUUK), CHIMERE (INERIS), MOCAGE (MF-CNRM), EMEP-Unified (MET.NO), MATCH (SMHI) and LOTOS-EUROS (TNO). Inputs to these models are provided by other MACC components:

• Meteorological fields from operational ECMWF weather-prediction products;
• Emission data from official European databases and from the cross-cutting activities on emissions (D-EMIS, D-FIRE);
• Boundary conditions from the global reanalyses and forecasts of atmospheric composition from G-IDAS;
• In-situ and satellite observational data acquired by D-INSITU and D-SAT.

Development of the solar radiation service draws on inputs from G-RG and G-AER, either directly or via G-IDAS production, as well as on specific tools utilizing ground-level and satellite data. In addition to benefitting from the heritage of GEMS and PROMOTE, R-RAD also builds on the work of the ESA EOMD project ENVISOLAR. The prototypes and methodologies elaborated in these projects are improved and made ready for operational application in MACC.