International audienceAerosol modeling is a challenging scientific problem aimed at improving our knowledge in the many complex processes involved in multiphase chemistry and transport. Correct simulations of aerosols are also required in order to elaborate particle emission reduction strategies. The CHIMERE chemistry transport model (Atmos. Environ. 35 (2001) 6277) has been improved to account for particle transport, formation, deposition at the European scale. The aerosol model accounts both for inorganic (NO3−, SO42−, NH4+) and organic species of primary or secondary origin. Secondary organic aerosols from biogenic and anthropogenic gas precursors are partitioned into gas and particulate phases through a temperature dependent partition coefficient. The modeling approach is presented in this paper with preliminary simulation results over Europe. Comparisons with available data at background stations give acceptable results on PM10, with correlation coefficients usually exceeding 0.5 and normalized errors in the 30–80% range in many regions. However, results on sulfate, nitrate and ammonium species display less correct error statistics. Comparisons on sulfate concentrations give normalized errors in the range 30–80% in summer and less correct in winter. Temporal correlation coefficients usually range from 0.30 to 0.70. Nitrate concentrations are better simulated during winter than during summer. Difficulties in simulating heterogeneous and aqueous phase processes could explain model deficiencies. Moreover, temperature dependence of gas/particle partitioning processes for nitrate, ammonium and secondary organic species could mainly explain the seasonal variability of biases. Model deficiencies are observed in Southern countries, certainly due to natural dust emissions and resuspended particles. Finally, sea salts seems to have a quite significant influence on error statistics in coastal areas

SUMMARYAn idealized case-study has been designed to investigate the modelling of the diurnal cycle of deep precipitating convection over land. A simulation of this case was performed by seven single-column models (SCMs) and three cloud-resolving models (CRMs). Within this framework, a quick onset of convective rainfall is found in most SCMs, consistent with the results from general-circulation models. In contrast, CRMs do not predict rainfall before noon. A joint analysis of the results provided by both types of model indicates that convection occurs too early in most SCMs, due to crude triggering criteria and quick onsets of convective precipitation. In the CRMs, the first clouds appear before noon, but surface rainfall is delayed by a few hours to several hours. This intermediate stage, missing in all SCMs except for one, is characterized by a gradual moistening of the free troposphere and an increase of cloud-top height. Later on, convective downdraughts efficiently cool and dry the boundary layer (BL) in the CRMs. This feature is also absent in most SCMs, which tend to adjust towards more unstable states, with moister (and often more cloudy) low levels and a drier free atmosphere. This common behaviour of most SCMs with respect to deep moist convective processes occurs even though each SCM simulates a different diurnal cycle of the BL and atmospheric stability. The scatter among the SCMs results from the wide variety of representations of BL turbulence and moist convection in these models. Greater consistency is found among the CRMs, despite some differences in their representation of the daytime BL growth, which are linked to their parametrizations of BL turbulence and/or resolution.

As part of the European Project on Cloud Systems in Climate Models, the diurnal cycle of stratocumulus has been simulated with Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) models and Single Column Models (SCMs). The models were initialized and compared with observations collected in marine stratocumulus in July 1987 during the First International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project Regional Experiment. The results of the six LES models are found to be in a fair agreement with the observations. They all capture the distinct diurnal variation in the cloud liquid-water path, the turbulence profiles and clearly show a decoupled boundary layer during daytime and a vertically well-mixed boundary layer during the night. Entrainment of relatively dry and warm air from just above the inversion into the boundary layer is the major process modifying the thermodynamic structure of the boundary layer during the night. The differences that arise in the liquid-water path evolution can therefore be attributed mainly to differences in the entrainment rate. The mean entrainment rates computed from the LES model results are 0.58 +/- 0.08 cm s(-1) and 0.36 +/- 0.03 cm s(-1) for the night-time and daytime periods, respectively. If the horizontal domain size in a LES model is enlarged, mesoscale fluctuations develop. This leads to a broader liquid-water path distribution and a reduction of the cloud albedo. To assess the quality of the representation of stratocumulus in general-circulation models, results from ten SCMs are compared with observations and LES results. The SCM latent and sensible heat fluxes at the surface agree fairly well with the LES results. Many of the SCMs predict a liquid-water path which is much too low, a cloud cover smaller than unity, and cloud tops that are lower than the observations and the LES results. This results in a much larger amount of downwelling short-wave radiation absorbed at the sea surface. Improvement of entrainment parametrizations is needed for a better representation of stratocumulus in SCMs. Observations and LES results of entrainment rates for different stratocumulus cases are compared. The observed entrainment rates in Atlantic stratocumulus clouds during the Atlantic Stratocumulus Transition Experiment (ASTEX) are larger than for the ones over the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California. Results from LES models corroborate these findings. The differences in the entrainment rate can likely be attributed to the smaller inversion jumps of the liquid-water potential temperature for the ASTEX stratocumulus case

SUMMARYAn intercomparison study for single-column models (SCMs) of the diurnal cycle of shallow cumulus convection is reported. The case, based on measurements at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement program Southern Great Plains site on 21 June 1997, has been used in a large-eddy simulation intercomparison study before. Results of the SCMs reveal the following general deficiencies: too large values of cloud cover and cloud liquid water, unrealistic thermodynamic profiles, and high amounts of numerical noise. Results are also strongly dependent on vertical resolution.These results are analysed in terms of the behaviour of the different parametrization schemes involved: the convection scheme, the turbulence scheme, and the cloud scheme. In general the behaviour of the SCMs can be grouped in two different classes: one class with too strong mixing by the turbulence scheme, the other class with too strong activity by the convection scheme. The coupling between (subcloud) turbulence and the convection scheme plays a crucial role. Finally, (in part) motivated by these results several models have been successfully updated with new parametrization schemes and/or their present schemes have been successfully modified.