We discuss and evaluate the representation of atmospheric chemistry in the global Community Atmosphere Model (CAM) version 4, the atmospheric component of the Community Earth System Model (CESM). We ...present a variety of configurations for the representation of tropospheric and stratospheric chemistry, wet removal, and online and offline meteorology. Results from simulations illustrating these configurations are compared with surface, aircraft and satellite observations. Major biases include a negative bias in the high-latitude CO distribution, a positive bias in upper-tropospheric/lower-stratospheric ozone, and a positive bias in summertime surface ozone (over the United States and Europe). The tropospheric net chemical ozone production varies significantly between configurations, partly related to variations in stratosphere-troposphere exchange. Aerosol optical depth tends to be underestimated over most regions, while comparison with aerosol surface measurements over the United States indicate reasonable results for sulfate , especially in the online simulation. Other aerosol species exhibit significant biases. Overall, the model-data comparison indicates that the offline simulation driven by GEOS5 meteorological analyses provides the best simulation, possibly due in part to the increased vertical resolution (52 levels instead of 26 for online dynamics). The CAM-chem code as described in this paper, along with all the necessary datasets needed to perform the simulations described here, are available for download at www.cesm.ucar.edu.
Atmospheric carbonaceous aerosols play an important role in the climate system by influencing the Earth's radiation budgets and modifying the cloud properties. Despite the importance, their ...representations in large-scale atmospheric models are still crude, which can influence model simulated burden, lifetime, physical, chemical and optical properties, and the climate forcing of carbonaceous aerosols. In this study, we improve the current three-mode version of the Modal Aerosol Module (MAM3) in the Community Atmosphere Model version 5 (CAM5) by introducing an additional primary carbon mode to explicitly account for the microphysical ageing of primary carbonaceous aerosols in the atmosphere. Compared to MAM3, the four-mode version of MAM (MAM4) significantly increases the column burdens of primary particulate organic matter (POM) and black carbon (BC) by up to 40 % in many remote regions, where in-cloud scavenging plays an important role in determining the aerosol concentrations. Differences in the column burdens for other types of aerosol (e.g., sulfate, secondary organic aerosols, mineral dust, sea salt) are less than 1 %. Evaluating the MAM4 simulation against in situ surface and aircraft observations, we find that MAM4 significantly improves the simulation of seasonal variation of near-surface BC concentrations in the polar regions, by increasing the BC concentrations in all seasons and particularly in cold seasons. However, it exacerbates the overestimation of modeled BC concentrations in the upper troposphere in the Pacific regions. The comparisons suggest that, to address the remaining model POM and BC biases, future improvements are required related to (1) in-cloud scavenging and vertical transport in convective clouds and (2) emissions of anthropogenic and biomass burning aerosols.
The authors have decomposed the anthropogenic aerosol radiative forcing into direct contributions from each aerosol species to the planetary energy balance through absorption and scattering of solar ...radiation, indirect effects of anthropogenic aerosol on solar and infrared radiation through droplet and crystal nucleation on aerosol, and semidirect effects through the influence of solar absorption on the distribution of clouds. A three-mode representation of the aerosol in version 5.1 of the Community Atmosphere Model (CAM5.1) yields global annual mean radiative forcing estimates for each of these forcing mechanisms that are within 0.1 W m−2of estimates using a more complex seven-mode representation that distinguishes between fresh and aged black carbon and primary organic matter. Simulating fresh black carbon particles separately from internally mixed accumulation mode particles is found to be important only near fossil fuel sources. In addition to the usual large indirect effect on solar radiation, this study finds an unexpectedly large positive longwave indirect effect (because of enhanced cirrus produced by homogenous nucleation of ice crystals on anthropogenic sulfate), small shortwave and longwave semidirect effects, and a small direct effect (because of cancelation and interactions of direct effects of black carbon and sulfate). Differences between the three-mode and seven-mode versions are significantly larger (up to 0.2 W m−2) when the hygroscopicity of primary organic matter is decreased from 0.1 to 0 and transfer of the primary carbonaceous aerosol to the accumulation mode in the seven-mode version requires more hygroscopic material coating the primary particles. Radiative forcing by cloudborne anthropogenic black carbon is only −0.07 W m−2.
The Energy Exascale Earth System Model Atmosphere Model version 1, the atmospheric component of the Department of Energy's Energy Exascale Earth System Model is described. The model began as a fork ...of the well‐known Community Atmosphere Model, but it has evolved in new ways, and coding, performance, resolution, physical processes (primarily cloud and aerosols formulations), testing and development procedures now differ significantly. Vertical resolution was increased (from 30 to 72 layers), and the model top extended to 60 km (~0.1 hPa). A simple ozone photochemistry predicts stratospheric ozone, and the model now supports increased and more realistic variability in the upper troposphere and stratosphere. An optional improved treatment of light‐absorbing particle deposition to snowpack and ice is available, and stronger connections with Earth system biogeochemistry can be used for some science problems. Satellite and ground‐based cloud and aerosol simulators were implemented to facilitate evaluation of clouds, aerosols, and aerosol‐cloud interactions. Higher horizontal and vertical resolution, increased complexity, and more predicted and transported variables have increased the model computational cost and changed the simulations considerably. These changes required development of alternate strategies for tuning and evaluation as it was not feasible to “brute force” tune the high‐resolution configurations, so short‐term hindcasts, perturbed parameter ensemble simulations, and regionally refined simulations provided guidance on tuning and parameterization sensitivity to higher resolution. A brief overview of the model and model climate is provided. Model fidelity has generally improved compared to its predecessors and the CMIP5 generation of climate models.
Plain Language Summary
This study provides an overview of a new computer model of the Earth's atmosphere that is used as one component of the Department of Energy's latest Earth system model. The model can be used to help understand past, present, and future changes in Earth's behavior as the system responds to changes in atmospheric composition (like pollution and greenhouse gases), land, and water use and to explore how the atmosphere interacts with other components of the Earth system (ocean, land, biology, etc.). Physical, chemical, and biogeochemical processes treated within the atmospheric model are described, and pointers to previous and recent work are listed to provide additional information. The model is compared to present‐day observations and evaluated for some important tests that provide information about what could happen to clouds and the environment as changes occur. Strengths and weaknesses of the model are listed, as well as opportunities for future work.
Key Points
A brief description and evaluation is provided for the atmospheric component of the Department of Energy's Energy Exascale Earth System Model
Model fidelity has generally improved compared to predecessors and models participating in past international model evaluations
Strengths and weaknesses of the model, as well as opportunities for future work, are described
THE COMMUNITY EARTH SYSTEM MODEL Hurrell, James W.; Holland, M. M.; Gent, P. R. ...
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society,
09/2013, Letnik:
94, Številka:
9
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The Community Earth System Model (CESM) is a flexible and extensible community tool used to investigate a diverse set of Earth system interactions across multiple time and space scales. This global ...coupled model significantly extends its predecessor, the Community Climate System Model, by incorporating new Earth system simulation capabilities. These comprise the ability to simulate biogeochemical cycles, including those of carbon and nitrogen, a variety of atmospheric chemistry options, the Greenland Ice Sheet, and an atmosphere that extends to the lower thermosphere. These and other new model capabilities are enabling investigations into a wide range of pressing scientific questions, providing new foresight into possible future climates and increasing our collective knowledge about the behavior and interactions of the Earth system. Simulations with numerous configurations of the CESM have been provided to phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) and are being analyzed by the broad community of scientists. Additionally, the model source code and associated documentation are freely available to the scientific community to use for Earth system studies, making it a true community tool. This article describes this Earth system model and its various possible configurations, and highlights a number of its scientific capabilities.
Many global aerosol and climate models, including the widely used Community Atmosphere Model version 5 (CAM5), have large biases in predicting aerosols in remote regions such as the upper troposphere ...and high latitudes. In this study, we conduct CAM5 sensitivity simulations to understand the role of key processes associated with aerosol transformation and wet removal affecting the vertical and horizontal long-range transport of aerosols to the remote regions. Improvements are made to processes that are currently not well represented in CAM5, which are guided by surface and aircraft measurements together with results from a multi-scale aerosol-climate model that explicitly represents convection and aerosol-cloud interactions at cloud-resolving scales. We pay particular attention to black carbon (BC) due to its importance in the Earth system and the availability of measurements. We introduce into CAM5 a new unified scheme for convective transport and aerosol wet removal with explicit aerosol activation above convective cloud base. This new implementation reduces the excessive BC aloft to better simulate observed BC profiles that show decreasing mixing ratios in the mid- to upper-troposphere. After implementing this new unified convective scheme, we examine wet removal of submicron aerosols that occurs primarily through cloud processes. The wet removal depends strongly on the subgrid-scale liquid cloud fraction and the rate of conversion of liquid water to precipitation. These processes lead to very strong wet removal of BC and other aerosols over mid- to high latitudes during winter months. With our improvements, the Arctic BC burden has a 10-fold (5-fold) increase in the winter (summer) months, resulting in a much-better simulation of the BC seasonal cycle as well. Arctic sulphate and other aerosol species also increase but to a lesser extent. An explicit treatment of BC aging with slower aging assumptions produces an additional 30-fold (5-fold) increase in the Arctic winter (summer) BC burden. This BC aging treatment, however, has minimal effect on other underpredicted species. Interestingly, our modifications to CAM5 that aim at improving prediction of high-latitude and upper-tropospheric aerosols also produce much-better aerosol optical depth (AOD) over various other regions globally when compared to multi-year AERONET retrievals. The improved aerosol distributions have impacts on other aspects of CAM5, improving the simulation of global mean liquid water path and cloud forcing.