Toward a minimal representation of aerosols in climate models: description and evaluation in the Community Atmosphere Model CAM5

作者：Xiaohong Liu, R. C. Easter, Steven J. Ghan, R. A. Zaveri, Phillip J. Rasch, Xiangjun Shi, Jean‐François Lamarque, Andrew Gettelman, Hugh Morrison, Francis M. Vitt, Andrew Conley, Seung‐Bu Park, Richard Neale, Cécile Hannay, Annica M. L. Ekman, Peter Hess, N. M. Mahowald, William D. Collins, Michael J. Iacono, Christopher S. Bretherton, Mark G. Flanner, David L. Mitchell · 发表于：Geoscientific model development · 年份：2012 · DOI：10.5194/gmd-5-709-2012 · 被引用次数：1124 · 研究领域：Atmospheric chemistry and aerosols、Atmospheric Ozone and Climate、Atmospheric aerosols and clouds

Abstract. A modal aerosol module (MAM) has been developed for the Community Atmosphere Model version 5 (CAM5), the atmospheric component of the Community Earth System Model version 1 (CESM1). MAM is capable of simulating the aerosol size distribution and both internal and external mixing between aerosol components, treating numerous complicated aerosol processes and aerosol physical, chemical and optical properties in a physically-based manner. Two MAM versions were developed: a more complete version with seven lognormal modes (MAM7), and a version with three lognormal modes (MAM3) for the purpose of long-term (decades to centuries) simulations. In this paper a description and evaluation of the aerosol module and its two representations are provided. Sensitivity of the aerosol lifecycle to simplifications in the representation of aerosol is discussed. Simulated sulfate and secondary organic aerosol (SOA) mass concentrations are remarkably similar between MAM3 and MAM7. Differences in primary organic matter (POM) and black carbon (BC) concentrations between MAM3 and MAM7 are also small (mostly within 10%). The mineral dust global burden differs by 10% and sea salt burden by 30–40% between MAM3 and MAM7, mainly due to the different size ranges for dust and sea salt modes and different standard deviations of the log-normal size distribution for sea salt modes between MAM3 and MAM7. The model is able to qualitatively capture the observed geographical and temporal variations of ae...