Earth System Model Aerosol–Cloud Diagnostics (ESMAC Diags) package, version 1: assessing E3SM aerosol predictions using aircraft, ship, and surface measurements
<p>An Earth system model (ESM) aerosol–cloud diagnostics package is developed to facilitate the routine evaluation of aerosols, clouds, and aerosol–cloud interactions simulated by the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) from the US Department of Energy (DOE). The first version focuses on...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2022-05-01
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| Series: | Geoscientific Model Development |
| Online Access: | https://gmd.copernicus.org/articles/15/4055/2022/gmd-15-4055-2022.pdf |
| Summary: | <p>An Earth system model (ESM) aerosol–cloud diagnostics
package is developed to facilitate the routine evaluation of aerosols,
clouds, and aerosol–cloud interactions simulated by the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) from the US Department of
Energy (DOE). The first version
focuses on comparing simulated aerosol properties with aircraft, ship, and
surface measurements, which are mostly measured in situ. The diagnostics
currently cover six field campaigns in four geographical regions: eastern
North Atlantic (ENA), central US (CUS), northeastern Pacific (NEP), and
Southern Ocean (SO). These regions produce frequent liquid- or mixed-phase
clouds, with extensive measurements available from the Atmospheric Radiation
Measurement (ARM) program and other agencies. Various types of diagnostics
and metrics are performed for aerosol number, size distribution, chemical
composition, cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) concentration, and various meteorological quantities to
assess how well E3SM represents observed aerosol properties across spatial
scales. Overall, E3SM qualitatively reproduces the observed aerosol number
concentration, size distribution, and chemical composition reasonably well,
but it overestimates Aitken-mode aerosols and underestimates accumulation-mode aerosols
over the CUS and ENA regions, suggesting that processes related to particle
growth or coagulation might be too weak in the model. The current version of
E3SM struggles to reproduce the new particle formation events frequently
observed over both the CUS and ENA regions, indicating missing processes in
current parameterizations. The diagnostics package is coded and organized in
a way that can be extended to other field campaign datasets and adapted to
higher-resolution model simulations.</p> |
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| ISSN: | 1991-959X 1991-9603 |