Abstract. Carbonaceous aerosols significantly affect global radiative forcing and climate through absorption and the scattering of sunlight. Black carbon (BC) and brown carbon (BrC) are light-absorbing carbonaceous aerosols. The direct radiative effect (DRE) of BrC is uncertain. A recent study suggests that BrC absorption is comparable to BC in the upper troposphere over biomass burning regions and that the resulting radiative heating tends to stabilize the atmosphere. Yet current climate models do not include proper physical and chemical treatments of BrC. In this study, we derived a BrC global biomass burning emission inventory on the basis of the Global Fire Emissions Database version 4 (GFED4), developed a module to simulate the light absorption of BrC in the Community Atmosphere Model version 5 (CAM5) of the Community Earth System Model (CESM), and investigated the photobleaching effect and convective transport of BrC on the basis of Studies of Emissions, Atmospheric Composition, Clouds and Climate Coupling by Regional Surveys (SEAC4RS) and Deep Convective Clouds and Chemistry Project (DC3) measurements. The model simulations of BC were also evaluated using HIAPER (High-Performance Instrumented Airborne Platform for Environmental Research) Pole-to-Pole Observations (HIPPO) measurements. We found that globally BrC is a significant absorber, the DRE of which is 0.10 W m−2, more than 25 % of BC DRE (+0.39 W m−2). Most significantly, model results indicated that BrC atmospheric heating in the tropical mid and upper troposphere is larger than that of BC. The source of tropical BrC is mainly from wildfires, which are more prevalent in the tropical regions than higher latitudes and release much more BrC relative to BC than industrial sources. While BC atmospheric heating is skewed towards the northern mid-latitude lower atmosphere, BrC heating is more centered in the tropical free troposphere. A possible mechanism for the enhanced convective transport of BrC is that hydrophobic high molecular weight BrC becomes a larger fraction of the BrC and less easily activated in a cloud as the aerosol ages. The contribution of BrC heating to the Hadley circulation and latitudinal expansion of the tropics is likely comparable to BC heating.

Abstract. Aerosols from fire emissions can potentially have large impact on clouds and radiation. However, fire aerosol sources are often intermittent, and their effect on weather and climate is difficult to quantify. Here we investigated the short-term effective radiative forcing of fire aerosols using the global aerosol-climate model Community Atmosphere Model version 5 (CAM5). Different from previous studies, we used nudged hindcast ensembles to quantify the forcing uncertainty due to the chaotic response to small perturbations in the atmosphere state. Daily mean emissions from three fire inventories were used to consider the uncertainty in emission strength and injection heights. The simulated aerosol optical depth (AOD) and mass concentrations were evaluated against in situ measurements and reanalysis data. Overall, the results show the model has reasonably good predicting skills. Short (10-day) nudged ensemble simulations were then performed with and without fire emissions to estimate the effective radiative forcing. Results show fire aerosols have large effects on both liquid and ice clouds over the two selected regions in April 2009. Ensemble mean results show strong negative shortwave cloud radiative effect (SCRE) over almost the entirety of southern Mexico, with a 10-day regional mean value of −3.0 W m −2 . Over the central US, the SCRE is positive in the north but negative in the south, and the regional mean SCRE is small (−0.56 W m −2 ). For the 10-day average, we found a large ensemble spread of regional mean shortwave cloud radiative effect over southern Mexico (15.6 % of the corresponding ensemble mean) and the central US (64.3 %), despite the regional mean AOD time series being almost indistinguishable during the 10-day period. Moreover, the ensemble spread is much larger when using daily averages instead of 10-day averages. This demonstrates the importance of using a large ensemble of simulations to estimate the short-term aerosol effective radiative forcing.

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> Carbonaceous aerosols significantly affect global radiative forcing and climate through absorption and scattering of sunlight. Black carbon (BC) and brown carbon (BrC) are light-absorbing carbonaceous aerosols. The direct radiative effect (DRE) of BrC is uncertain. A recent study suggests that BrC absorption is comparable to BC in the upper troposphere over biomass burning regions and that the resulting radiative heating tends to stabilize the atmosphere. Yet current climate models do not include proper physical and chemical treatments of BrC. In this study, we derived a BrC global biomass burning emission inventory on the basis of the Global Fire Emissions Database 4 (GFED4), developed a BrC module in the Community Atmosphere Model version 5 (CAM5) of Community Earth System Model (CESM) model, and investigated the photo-bleaching effect and convective transport of BrC on the basis of Studies of Emissions, Atmospheric Composition, Clouds and Climate Coupling by Regional Surveys (SEAC4RS) and Deep Convective Clouds and Chemistry Project (DC-3) measurements. The model simulations of BC were also evaluated using HIAPER (High-Performance Instrumented Airborne Platform for Environmental Research) Pole-to-Pole Observations (HIPPO) measurements. We found that globally BrC is a significant absorber, the DRE of which is 0.10 W/m<sup>2</sup>, more than 25 % of BC DRE (+0.39 W/m<sup>2</sup>). Most significantly, model results indicated that BrC atmospheric heating in the tropical mid and upper troposphere is larger than that of BC. The source of tropical BrC is mainly from wildfires, which are more prevalent in the tropical regions than higher latitudes and release much more BrC relative to BC than industrial sources. While BC atmospheric heating is skewed towards northern mid-latitude lower atmosphere, BrC heating is more centered in the tropical free troposphere. The contribution of BrC heating to the Hadley circulation and latitudinal expansion of the tropics is comparable to BC heating.</p>

Baroclinic waves give major contributions to the climatology and variability of key climate variables in mid‐ and high‐latitudes. An important aspect of cyclone variability is the seriality (succession of cyclone occurrence). Serial cyclones are clustered in time and are associated with large economic losses in Europe. Cyclone variability and seriality are intimately linked to the low frequency variability. To have a realistic representation of high and mid‐latitude regional climate in general circulation models (GCM), it is of vital importance that the described phenomena are realistically represented. In the present paper we evaluate the ability of the atmospheric GCM ARPEGE to represent various storm track parameters, both with respect to climatology and variability. Cyclone tracks are identified for the Northern Hemisphere during 55 extended winters (1950/51–2004/05) using the NCEP reanalyses by means of an objective tracking method. A corresponding cyclone track data set is derived from a simulation with ARPEGE, forced with observed monthly SSTs from 1950 to 2004. The comparison of the two data sets shows that ARPEGE reproduces the main features of the observed cyclone track fields. The mid‐latitude corridors of cyclones and cyclone variability are well reproduced. The model, however, underestimates the mean number of cyclone occurrence and its variance. In the eastern North Atlantic and Nordic Seas the model simulates 70 and 90% of the observed mean cyclone occurrence and its variance, respectively. ARPEGE also substantially underestimates the clustering of cyclones in the eastern North Atlantic (jet exit region). In addition, the model also fails to simulate the relationship between clustering and low‐frequency flow patterns at the exit of the North Atlantic storm track.