Coupling aerosols to (cirrus) clouds in the global  EMAC-MADE3 aerosol–climate  model

Righi, Mattia; Hendricks, Johannes; Lohmann, Ulrike; Beer, Christof Gerhard; Hahn, Valerian; Heinold, Bernd; Heller, Romy; Krämer, Martina; Ponater, Michael; Rolf, Christian; Tegen, Ina; Voigt, Christiane

doi:10.5194/gmd-13-1635-2020

Cited by 30 publications

(63 citation statements)

References 123 publications

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“…The resulting potential of dust to influence ice clouds on the global scale has also been demonstrated by modelling studies (Lohmann and Diehl, 2006;Hoose et al, 2010;Hendricks et al, 2011). As future applications of our model are intended to focus on aerosol effects on ice cloud properties (Righi et al, 2020), the present study is a necessary step towards an improved model setup suitable for this kind of model investigations.…”

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confidence: 64%

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Mineral dust modelling with MADE3 in EMAC v2.54

Beer

Hendricks

Righi

et al. 2020

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Abstract. Mineral dust particles play an important role in the climate system, by e.g. interacting with solar and terrestrial radiation or facilitating the formation of cloud droplets. Additionally, dust particles can act as very efficient ice nuclei in cirrus clouds. Many Global Chemistry Climate Models (GCCMs) use prescribed monthly mean mineral dust emissions representative of a specific year, based on a climatology. It was hypothesized that using dust emission climatologies may lead to misrepresentations of strong dust burst episodes, resulting in a negative bias of model dust concentrations compared to observations for these episodes. Here, we apply the aerosol microphysics submodel MADE3 (Modal Aerosol Dynamics model for Europe, adapted for global applications, third generation) as part of the ECHAM/MESSy Atmospheric Chemistry (EMAC) general circulation model. We employ two different representations of mineral dust for our model simulations: i) a prescribed monthly-mean climatology of dust emissions representative of the year 2000; ii) an online dust parametrization which calculates wind-driven mineral dust emissions at every model time-step. We evaluate model results for these two dust representations by comparison with observations of aerosol optical depth from ground-based station data. The model results show a better agreement with the observations for strong dust burst events when using the online dust representation compared to the prescribed dust emissions setup. Furthermore, we analyse the effect of increasing the vertical and horizontal model resolution on mineral dust properties in our model. The model is evaluated against airborne in situ measurements performed during the SALTRACE mineral dust campaign (Saharan Aerosol Long-range Transport and Aerosol-Cloud Interaction Experiment, June/July 2013), i.e. observations of dust transported from the Sahara to the Caribbean. Results show that an increased horizontal and vertical model resolution is able to better represent the spatial distribution of airborne mineral dust, especially in the upper troposphere (above 400 hPa). Additionally, we analyse the effect of varying assumptions for the size distribution of emitted dust. The results of this study will help to identify the model setup best suited for future studies and to further improve the representation of mineral dust particles in EMAC-MADE3.

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confidence: 64%

“…This procedure for tuning online dust emissions was also described and applied in Righi et al (2020). The resulting tuned dust emissions of the year 2000 are shown in Fig.…”

Section: Model Setupmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mineral dust modelling with MADE3 in EMAC v2.54

Beer

Hendricks

Righi

et al. 2020

Preprint

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“…It uses the second version of MESSy to connect multiinstitutional computer codes. The core atmospheric model is the ECHAM5 (fifth-generation European Centre Hamburg) general circulation model (Roeckner et al, 2006).…”

Section: Model Description and Observational Data 21 Emac Setupmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modelling mineral dust emissions and atmospheric dispersion with MADE3 in EMAC v2.54

et al. 2020

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Abstract. It was hypothesized that using mineral dust emission climatologies in global chemistry climate models (GCCMs), i.e. prescribed monthly-mean dust emissions representative of a specific year, may lead to misrepresentations of strong dust burst events. This could result in a negative bias of model dust concentrations compared to observations for these episodes. Here, we apply the aerosol microphysics submodel MADE3 (Modal Aerosol Dynamics model for Europe, adapted for global applications, third generation) as part of the ECHAM/MESSy Atmospheric Chemistry (EMAC) general circulation model. We employ two different representations of mineral dust emissions for our model simulations: (i) a prescribed monthly-mean climatology of dust emissions representative of the year 2000 and (ii) an online dust parametrization which calculates wind-driven mineral dust emissions at every model time step. We evaluate model results for these two dust representations by comparison with observations of aerosol optical depth from ground-based station data. The model results show a better agreement with the observations for strong dust burst events when using the online dust representation compared to the prescribed dust emissions setup. Furthermore, we analyse the effect of increasing the vertical and horizontal model resolution on the mineral dust properties in our model. We compare results from simulations with T42L31 and T63L31 model resolution (2.8∘×2.8∘ and 1.9∘×1.9∘ in latitude and longitude, respectively; 31 vertical levels) with the reference setup (T42L19). The different model versions are evaluated against airborne in situ measurements performed during the SALTRACE mineral dust campaign (Saharan Aerosol Long-range Transport and Aerosol-Cloud Interaction Experiment, June–July 2013), i.e. observations of dust transported from the Sahara to the Caribbean. Results show that an increased horizontal and vertical model resolution is able to better represent the spatial distribution of airborne mineral dust, especially in the upper troposphere (above 400 hPa). Additionally, we analyse the effect of varying assumptions for the size distribution of emitted dust but find only a weak sensitivity concerning these changes. The results of this study will help to identify the model setup best suited for future studies and to further improve the representation of mineral dust particles in EMAC-MADE3.

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“…CC BY 4.0 License. study of Krämer et al (2020) sampled -91ºC to -30ºC and 5 -19 km (their Figure 2). The lowest temperatures are found in the tropical regions and at the highest altitudes, whereas polar regions show more observations at lower altitudes that satisfy temperature ≤ -40ºC.…”

Section: In Situ Observations and Instrumentationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Wolf et al (2018) used balloon-based in situ observations to analyze microphysical properties of Arctic ice clouds and found differences in particle size distributions (PSDs) depending on the cloud origin. Krämer et al (2016Krämer et al ( , 2020 developed a cirrus cloud climatology, focusing on tropical and midlatitude cirrus clouds, and showed that cloud thickness is larger at lower altitudes, and thus producing a more negative radiative forcing. Moving from north to south using lidar-based observations from two research cruises starting from Leipzig, Germany, one to Punta Arenas, Chile and the other one to Stellenbosch, South Africa, Kanitz et al (2011) observed a decrease in the efficiency of heterogeneous nucleation in the SH, which could be a result of fewer INPs.…”

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confidence: 99%

Effects of Thermodynamics, Dynamics and Aerosols on Cirrus Clouds Based on In Situ Observations and NCAR CAM6 Model

Patnaude¹,

Diao²,

Liu³

et al. 2020

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Abstract. Cirrus cloud radiative effects are largely affected by ice microphysical properties, including ice water content (IWC), ice crystal number concentration (Ni) and mean diameter (Di). These characteristics vary significantly due to thermodynamic, dynamical and aerosol conditions. In this work, a global-scale observation dataset is used to examine regional variations of cirrus cloud microphysical properties, as well as several key controlling factors, i.e., temperature, relative humidity with respect to ice (RHi), vertical velocity (w), and aerosol number concentrations (Na). Results are compared with simulations from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Community Atmosphere Model version 6 (CAM6). The differences between simulations and observations are found to vary with latitude and temperature. Specifically, simulations are found to underestimate IWC by a factor of 5–30 in all regions. Simulated Ni is overestimated in most regions except Northern Hemisphere midlatitude and polar regions. Simulated Di is underestimated, especially for warmer conditions (−50 °C to −40 °C) and higher Na, possibly due to less effective ice particle growth/sedimentation and weaker aerosol indirect effects, respectively. For RHi effects, the frequency and magnitude of ice supersaturation is underestimated in simulations for clear-sky conditions, and the simulated IWC and Ni show maximum values at 80 % RHi instead of 110 % as observed. For w effects, both observations and simulations show variances of w (σw) decreasing from tropics to polar regions, but simulations show much higher σw for in-cloud condition than clear-sky condition. These findings provide an observation-based guideline for improving simulated ice microphysical properties and their relationships with key controlling factors at various geographical locations.

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Coupling aerosols to (cirrus) clouds in the global EMAC-MADE3 aerosol–climate model

Cited by 30 publications

References 123 publications

Mineral dust modelling with MADE3 in EMAC v2.54

Mineral dust modelling with MADE3 in EMAC v2.54

Modelling mineral dust emissions and atmospheric dispersion with MADE3 in EMAC v2.54

Effects of Thermodynamics, Dynamics and Aerosols on Cirrus Clouds Based on In Situ Observations and NCAR CAM6 Model

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