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Title: Evaluating Uncertainties in Marine Biogeochemical Models: Benchmarking Aerosol Precursors

Journal Article · · Atmosphere (Basel)
DOI:https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos9050184· OSTI ID:1557764

The effort to accurately estimate global radiative forcing has long been hampered by a degree of uncertainty in the tropospheric aerosol contribution. Reducing uncertainty in natural aerosol processes, the baseline of the aerosol budget, thus becomes a fundamental task. The appropriate representation of aerosols in the marine boundary layer (MBL) is essential to reduce uncertainty and provide reliable information on offsets to global warming. We developed an International Ocean Model Benchmarking package to assess marine biogeochemical process representations in Earth System Models (ESMs), and the package was employed to evaluate surface ocean concentrations and the sea–air fluxes of dimethylsulfide (DMS). Model performances were scored based on how well they captured the distribution and variability contained in high-quality observational datasets. Results show that model-data biases increased as DMS enters the MBL, but unfortunately over three-quarters of the models participating in the fifth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) did not have a dynamic representation of DMS. When it is present, models tend to over-predict sea surface concentrations in the productive region of the eastern tropical Pacific by almost a factor of two, and the sea–air fluxes by a factor of three. Systematic model-data benchmarking as described here will help to identify such deficiencies and subsequently lead to improved subgrid-scale parameterizations and ESM development.

Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC). Biological and Environmental Research (BER); National Science Foundation (NSF); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
Grant/Contract Number:
89233218CNA000001; AC05-00OR22725
OSTI ID:
1557764
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1902816
Report Number(s):
LA-UR-19-21266; ATMOCZ
Journal Information:
Atmosphere (Basel), Vol. 9, Issue 5; ISSN 2073-4433
Publisher:
MDPICopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 4 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (1)

Ocean Contributions to the Marine Boundary Layer Aerosol Budget journal February 2019