scholarly journals Modeling dust as component minerals in the Community Atmosphere Model: development of framework and impact on radiative forcing

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (12) ◽  
pp. 17749-17816 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. A. Scanza ◽  
N. Mahowald ◽  
S. Ghan ◽  
C. S. Zender ◽  
J. F. Kok ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Radiative Forcing ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Mineral Soil ◽  
Model Development ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Variability ◽  
Model Version ◽  
Mineral Aerosols ◽  
Community Atmosphere Model ◽  
Atmosphere Model ◽  
Aerosol Module

Abstract. The mineralogy of desert dust is important due to its effect on radiation, clouds and biogeochemical cycling of trace nutrients. This study presents the simulation of dust radiative forcing as a function of both mineral composition and size at the global scale using mineral soil maps for estimating emissions. Externally mixed mineral aerosols in the bulk aerosol module in the Community Atmosphere Model version 4 (CAM4) and internally mixed mineral aerosols in the modal aerosol module in the Community Atmosphere Model version 5.1 (CAM5) embedded in the Community Earth System Model version 1.0.5 (CESM) are speciated into common mineral components in place of total dust. The simulations with mineralogy are compared to available observations of mineral atmospheric distribution and deposition along with observations of clear-sky radiative forcing efficiency. Based on these simulations, we estimate the all-sky direct radiative forcing at the top of the atmosphere as +0.05 W m−2 for both CAM4 and CAM5 simulations with mineralogy and compare this both with simulations of dust in release versions of CAM4 and CAM5 (+0.08 and +0.17 W m−2) and of dust with optimized optical properties, wet scavenging and particle size distribution in CAM4 and CAM5, −0.05 and −0.17 W m−2, respectively. The ability to correctly include the mineralogy of dust in climate models is hindered by its spatial and temporal variability as well as insufficient global in-situ observations, incomplete and uncertain source mineralogies and the uncertainties associated with data retrieved from remote sensing methods.

scholarly journals Modeling dust as component minerals in the Community Atmosphere Model: development of framework and impact on radiative forcing

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 537-561 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. A. Scanza ◽  
N. Mahowald ◽  
S. Ghan ◽  
C. S. Zender ◽  
J. F. Kok ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Radiative Forcing ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Mineral Soil ◽  
Model Development ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Variability ◽  
Model Version ◽  
Mineral Aerosols ◽  
Community Atmosphere Model ◽  
Atmosphere Model ◽  
Aerosol Module

Abstract. The mineralogy of desert dust is important due to its effect on radiation, clouds and biogeochemical cycling of trace nutrients. This study presents the simulation of dust radiative forcing as a function of both mineral composition and size at the global scale, using mineral soil maps for estimating emissions. Externally mixed mineral aerosols in the bulk aerosol module in the Community Atmosphere Model version 4 (CAM4) and internally mixed mineral aerosols in the modal aerosol module in the Community Atmosphere Model version 5.1 (CAM5) embedded in the Community Earth System Model version 1.0.5 (CESM) are speciated into common mineral components in place of total dust. The simulations with mineralogy are compared to available observations of mineral atmospheric distribution and deposition along with observations of clear-sky radiative forcing efficiency. Based on these simulations, we estimate the all-sky direct radiative forcing at the top of the atmosphere as + 0.05 Wm−2 for both CAM4 and CAM5 simulations with mineralogy. We compare this to the radiative forcing from simulations of dust in release versions of CAM4 and CAM5 (+0.08 and +0.17 Wm−2) and of dust with optimized optical properties, wet scavenging and particle size distribution in CAM4 and CAM5, −0.05 and −0.17 Wm−2, respectively. The ability to correctly include the mineralogy of dust in climate models is hindered by its spatial and temporal variability as well as insufficient global in situ observations, incomplete and uncertain source mineralogies and the uncertainties associated with data retrieved from remote sensing methods.

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

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 709-739 ◽  
Author(s):  
X. Liu ◽  
R. C. Easter ◽  
S. J. Ghan ◽  
R. Zaveri ◽  
P. Rasch ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Optical Properties ◽  
Size Distribution ◽  
Sea Salt ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Aerosol Size Distribution ◽  
Model Version ◽  
Community Atmosphere Model ◽  
Atmosphere Model ◽  
Aerosol Module

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 aerosol mass and number concentrations, size distributions, and aerosol optical properties. However, there are noticeable biases; e.g., simulated BC concentrations are significantly lower than measurements in the Arctic. There is a low bias in modeled aerosol optical depth on the global scale, especially in the developing countries. These biases in aerosol simulations clearly indicate the need for improvements of aerosol processes (e.g., emission fluxes of anthropogenic aerosols and precursor gases in developing countries, boundary layer nucleation) and properties (e.g., primary aerosol emission size, POM hygroscopicity). In addition, the critical role of cloud properties (e.g., liquid water content, cloud fraction) responsible for the wet scavenging of aerosol is highlighted.

scholarly journals Downscale cascades in tracer transport test cases: an intercomparison of the dynamical cores in the Community Atmosphere Model CAM5

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 1781-1816 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Kent ◽  
C. Jablonowski ◽  
J. P. Whitehead ◽  
R. B. Rood
Keyword(s):  
Climate Models ◽  
Western Hemisphere ◽  
Test Cases ◽  
Tracer Transport ◽  
Model Version ◽  
Eastern Hemisphere ◽  
Community Atmosphere Model ◽  
Advection Schemes ◽  
Spectral Transform ◽  
Atmosphere Model

Abstract. The accurate modelling of cascades to unresolved scales is an important part of the tracer transport component of dynamical cores of weather and climate models. This paper aims to investigate the ability of the advection schemes in the National Center for Atmospheric Research's Community Atmosphere Model version 5 (CAM5) to model this cascade. In order to quantify the effects of the different advection schemes in CAM5, four two-dimensional tracer transport test cases are presented. Three of the tests stretch the tracer below the scale of coarse resolution grids to ensure the downscale cascade of tracer variance. These results are compared with a high resolution reference solution, which is simulated on a resolution fine enough to resolve the tracer during the test. The fourth test has two separate flow cells, and is designed so that any tracer in the Western Hemisphere should not pass into the Eastern Hemisphere. This is to test whether the diffusion in transport schemes, often in the form of explicit hyper-diffusion terms or implicit through monotonic limiters, contains unphysical mixing. An intercomparison of three of the dynamical cores of the National Center for Atmospheric Research's Community Atmosphere Model version 5 is performed. The results show that the finite-volume (CAM-FV) and spectral element (CAM-SE) dynamical cores model the downscale cascade of tracer variance better than the semi-Lagrangian transport scheme of the Eulerian spectral transform core (CAM-EUL). Each scheme tested produces unphysical mass in the Eastern Hemisphere of the separate cells test.

scholarly journals Aerosol specification in single-column Community Atmosphere Model version 5

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 817-828 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Lebassi-Habtezion ◽  
P. M. Caldwell
Keyword(s):  
General Circulation Model ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Model Development ◽  
Circulation Model ◽  
Cloud Droplet ◽  
Global Mode ◽  
Community Atmosphere Model ◽  
Single Column ◽  
Atmosphere Model

Abstract. Single-column model (SCM) capability is an important tool for general circulation model development. In this study, the SCM mode of version 5 of the Community Atmosphere Model (CAM5) is shown to handle aerosol initialization and advection improperly, resulting in aerosol, cloud-droplet, and ice crystal concentrations which are typically much lower than observed or simulated by CAM5 in global mode. This deficiency has a major impact on stratiform cloud simulations but has little impact on convective case studies because aerosol is currently not used by CAM5 convective schemes and convective cases are typically longer in duration (so initialization is less important). By imposing fixed aerosol or cloud-droplet and crystal number concentrations, the aerosol issues described above can be avoided. Sensitivity studies using these idealizations suggest that the Meyers et al. (1992) ice nucleation scheme prevents mixed-phase cloud from existing by producing too many ice crystals. Microphysics is shown to strongly deplete cloud water in stratiform cases, indicating problems with sequential splitting in CAM5 and the need for careful interpretation of output from sequentially split climate models. Droplet concentration in the general circulation model (GCM) version of CAM5 is also shown to be far too low (~ 25 cm−3) at the southern Great Plains (SGP) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) site.

scholarly journals Downscale cascades in tracer transport test cases: an intercomparison of the dynamical cores in the Community Atmosphere Model CAM5

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (6) ◽  
pp. 1517-1530 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Kent ◽  
C. Jablonowski ◽  
J. P. Whitehead ◽  
R. B. Rood
Keyword(s):  
Climate Models ◽  
Western Hemisphere ◽  
Test Cases ◽  
Tracer Transport ◽  
Model Version ◽  
Eastern Hemisphere ◽  
Community Atmosphere Model ◽  
Advection Schemes ◽  
Spectral Transform ◽  
Atmosphere Model

Abstract. The accurate modeling of cascades to unresolved scales is an important part of the tracer transport component of dynamical cores of weather and climate models. This paper aims to investigate the ability of the advection schemes in the National Center for Atmospheric Research's Community Atmosphere Model version 5 (CAM5) to model this cascade. In order to quantify the effects of the different advection schemes in CAM5, four two-dimensional tracer transport test cases are presented. Three of the tests stretch the tracer below the scale of coarse resolution grids to ensure the downscale cascade of tracer variance. These results are compared with a high resolution reference solution, which is simulated on a resolution fine enough to resolve the tracer during the test. The fourth test has two separate flow cells, and is designed so that any tracer in the western hemisphere should not pass into the eastern hemisphere. This is to test whether the diffusion in transport schemes, often in the form of explicit hyper-diffusion terms or implicit through monotonic limiters, contains unphysical mixing. An intercomparison of three of the dynamical cores of the National Center for Atmospheric Research's Community Atmosphere Model version 5 is performed. The results show that the finite-volume (CAM-FV) and spectral element (CAM-SE) dynamical cores model the downscale cascade of tracer variance better than the semi-Lagrangian transport scheme of the Eulerian spectral transform core (CAM-EUL). Each scheme tested produces unphysical mass in the eastern hemisphere of the separate cells test.

scholarly journals Evaluating and improving cloud phase in the Community Atmosphere Model version 5 using spaceborne lidar observations

2016 ◽  
Vol 121 (8) ◽  
pp. 4162-4176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer E. Kay ◽  
Line Bourdages ◽  
Nathaniel B. Miller ◽  
Ariel Morrison ◽  
Vineel Yettella ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Model Version ◽  
Community Atmosphere Model ◽  
Atmosphere Model ◽  
Lidar Observations

Exposing Global Cloud Biases in the Community Atmosphere Model (CAM) Using Satellite Observations and Their Corresponding Instrument Simulators

2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (15) ◽  
pp. 5190-5207 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. E. Kay ◽  
B. R. Hillman ◽  
S. A. Klein ◽  
Y. Zhang ◽  
B. Medeiros ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Radiative Forcing ◽  
Marine Boundary Layer ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Substantial Improvement ◽  
Satellite Observations ◽  
Cloud Properties ◽  
Community Atmosphere Model ◽  
Realistic Representation ◽  
Model Cloud ◽  
Atmosphere Model

Abstract Satellite observations and their corresponding instrument simulators are used to document global cloud biases in the Community Atmosphere Model (CAM) versions 4 and 5. The model–observation comparisons show that, despite having nearly identical cloud radiative forcing, CAM5 has a much more realistic representation of cloud properties than CAM4. In particular, CAM5 exhibits substantial improvement in three long-standing climate model cloud biases: 1) the underestimation of total cloud, 2) the overestimation of optically thick cloud, and 3) the underestimation of midlevel cloud. While the increased total cloud and decreased optically thick cloud in CAM5 result from improved physical process representation, the increased midlevel cloud in CAM5 results from the addition of radiatively active snow. Despite these improvements, both CAM versions have cloud deficiencies. Of particular concern, both models exhibit large but differing biases in the subtropical marine boundary layer cloud regimes that are known to explain intermodel differences in cloud feedbacks and climate sensitivity. More generally, this study demonstrates that simulator-facilitated evaluation of cloud properties, such as amount by vertical level and optical depth, can robustly expose large and at times radiatively compensating climate model cloud biases.

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