Addition of Tropospheric Chemistry and Aerosols to the NCAR Community Climate System Model
Atmospheric chemistry and aerosols have several important roles in climate change. They affect the Earth's radiative balance directly: cooling the earth by scattering sunlight (aerosols) and warming the Earth by trapping the Earth's thermal radiation (methane, ozone, nitrous oxide, and CFCs are greenhouse gases). Atmospheric chemistry and aerosols also impact many other parts of the climate system: modifying cloud properties (aerosols can be cloud condensation nuclei), fertilizing the biosphere (nitrogen species and soil dust), and damaging the biosphere (acid rain and ozone damage). In order to understand and quantify the effects of atmospheric chemistry and aerosols on the climate and the biosphere in the future, it is necessary to incorporate atmospheric chemistry and aerosols into state-of-the-art climate system models. We have taken several important strides down that path. Working with the latest NCAR Community Climate System Model (CCSM), we have incorporated a state-of-the-art atmospheric chemistry model to simulate tropospheric ozone. Ozone is not just a greenhouse gas, it damages biological systems including lungs, tires, and crops. Ozone chemistry is also central to the oxidizing power of the atmosphere, which destroys a lot of pollutants in the atmosphere (which is a good thing). We have also implemented a fast chemical mechanism that has high fidelity with the full mechanism, for significantly reduced computational cost (to facilitate millennium scale simulations). Sulfate aerosols have a strong effect on climate by reflecting sunlight and modifying cloud properties. So in order to simulate the sulfur cycle more fully in CCSM simulations, we have linked the formation of sulfate aerosols to the oxidizing power of the atmosphere calculated by the ozone mechanisms, and to dimethyl sulfide emissions from the ocean ecosystem in the model. Since the impact of sulfate aerosols depends on the relative abundance of other aerosols in the atmosphere, we also implemented interactive simulation of nitrate, sea-salt, black carbon, and both primary and secondary organic aerosols into CCSM (using assumed size distributions). These new capabilities are opening the door to studies of the role atmospheric chemistry and aerosols in climate change, and their impact on the biosphere, that were previously impossible.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-48
- OSTI ID:
- 881068
- Report Number(s):
- UCRL-TR-217228; TRN: US200612%%772
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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