A New Paradigm for Diagnosing Contributions to Model Aerosol Forcing Error: Diagnosing Model Aerosol Forcing Error
Abstract
A new paradigm in benchmark absorption-scattering radiative transfer is presented that enables both the globally averaged and spatially resolved testing of climate model radiation parameterizations in order to uncover persistent sources of biases in the aerosol instantaneous radiative effect (IRE). A proof of concept is demonstrated with the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory AM4 and Community Earth System Model 1.2.2 climate models. Instead of prescribing atmospheric conditions and aerosols, as in prior intercomparisons, native snapshots of the atmospheric state and aerosol optical properties from the participating models are used as inputs to an accurate radiation solver to uncover model-relevant biases. These diagnostic results show that the models' aerosol IRE bias is of the same magnitude as the persistent range cited (~1 W/m 2) and also varies spatially and with intrinsic aerosol optical properties. The findings presented here underscore the significance of native model error analysis and its dispositive ability to diagnose global biases, confirming its fundamental value for the Radiative Forcing Model Intercomparison Project.
- Authors:
-
[1];
[2];
[3];
[3];
[3];
[4];
[5]
- Princeton Univ., NJ (United States). NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Lab. and Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Princeton Univ., NJ (United States). NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Lab.
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States). Dept. of Earth and Planetary Science
- Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States). Cooperative Inst. for Research in Environmental Sciences
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC); Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC); Princeton Univ., NJ (United States)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1411975
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1412578; OSTI ID: 1432234
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-05CH11231; SC0012549; SC0012313
- Resource Type:
- Published Article
- Journal Name:
- Geophysical Research Letters
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 44; Journal Issue: 23; Related Information: ©2017. The Authors.; Journal ID: ISSN 0094-8276
- Publisher:
- American Geophysical Union
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; 63 RADIATION, THERMAL, AND OTHER ENVIRON. POLLUTANT EFFECTS ON LIVING ORGS. AND BIOL. MAT.; 58 GEOSCIENCES; aerosol; radiative forcing; radiative effect; line by line; native error diagnostics; RFMIP
Citation Formats
Jones, A. L., Feldman, D. R., Freidenreich, S., Paynter, D., Ramaswamy, V., Collins, W. D., and Pincus, R. A New Paradigm for Diagnosing Contributions to Model Aerosol Forcing Error: Diagnosing Model Aerosol Forcing Error. United States: N. p., 2017.
Web. doi:10.1002/2017GL075933.
Jones, A. L., Feldman, D. R., Freidenreich, S., Paynter, D., Ramaswamy, V., Collins, W. D., & Pincus, R. A New Paradigm for Diagnosing Contributions to Model Aerosol Forcing Error: Diagnosing Model Aerosol Forcing Error. United States. doi:10.1002/2017GL075933.
Jones, A. L., Feldman, D. R., Freidenreich, S., Paynter, D., Ramaswamy, V., Collins, W. D., and Pincus, R. Thu .
"A New Paradigm for Diagnosing Contributions to Model Aerosol Forcing Error: Diagnosing Model Aerosol Forcing Error". United States. doi:10.1002/2017GL075933.
@article{osti_1411975,
title = {A New Paradigm for Diagnosing Contributions to Model Aerosol Forcing Error: Diagnosing Model Aerosol Forcing Error},
author = {Jones, A. L. and Feldman, D. R. and Freidenreich, S. and Paynter, D. and Ramaswamy, V. and Collins, W. D. and Pincus, R.},
abstractNote = {A new paradigm in benchmark absorption-scattering radiative transfer is presented that enables both the globally averaged and spatially resolved testing of climate model radiation parameterizations in order to uncover persistent sources of biases in the aerosol instantaneous radiative effect (IRE). A proof of concept is demonstrated with the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory AM4 and Community Earth System Model 1.2.2 climate models. Instead of prescribing atmospheric conditions and aerosols, as in prior intercomparisons, native snapshots of the atmospheric state and aerosol optical properties from the participating models are used as inputs to an accurate radiation solver to uncover model-relevant biases. These diagnostic results show that the models' aerosol IRE bias is of the same magnitude as the persistent range cited (~1 W/m2) and also varies spatially and with intrinsic aerosol optical properties. The findings presented here underscore the significance of native model error analysis and its dispositive ability to diagnose global biases, confirming its fundamental value for the Radiative Forcing Model Intercomparison Project.},
doi = {10.1002/2017GL075933},
journal = {Geophysical Research Letters},
number = 23,
volume = 44,
place = {United States},
year = {2017},
month = {12}
}
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
DOI: 10.1002/2017GL075933
DOI: 10.1002/2017GL075933
Other availability
Search WorldCat to find libraries that may hold this journal
Save to My Library
You must Sign In or Create an Account in order to save documents to your library.
Works referenced in this record:
Global and regional climate changes due to black carbon
journal, March 2008
- Ramanathan, V.; Carmichael, G.
- Nature Geoscience, Vol. 1, Issue 4
The Community Earth System Model: A Framework for Collaborative Research
journal, September 2013
- Hurrell, James W.; Holland, M. M.; Gent, P. R.
- Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Vol. 94, Issue 9
Accelerated monochromatic radiative transfer for scattering atmospheres: Application of a new model to spectral radiance observations
journal, September 1997
- Moncet, J. L.; Clough, S. A.
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, Vol. 102, Issue D18
Atmospheric radiative transfer modeling: a summary of the AER codes
journal, March 2005
- Clough, S. A.; Shephard, M. W.; Mlawer, E. J.
- Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer, Vol. 91, Issue 2
Rethinking the Lower Bound on Aerosol Radiative Forcing
journal, June 2015
- Stevens, Bjorn
- Journal of Climate, Vol. 28, Issue 12
Overview of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) experimental design and organization
journal, January 2016
- Eyring, Veronika; Bony, Sandrine; Meehl, Gerald A.
- Geoscientific Model Development, Vol. 9, Issue 5
Global-mean precipitation and black carbon in AR4 simulations: BLACK CARBON AND PRECIPITATION IN A1B
journal, January 2012
- Pendergrass, A. G.; Hartmann, D. L.
- Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 39, Issue 1
Host model uncertainties in aerosol radiative forcing estimates: results from the AeroCom Prescribed intercomparison study
journal, January 2013
- Stier, P.; Schutgens, N. A. J.; Bellouin, N.
- Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Vol. 13, Issue 6
Refinement of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory solar benchmark computations and an improved parameterization for climate models
journal, January 2005
- Freidenreich, S. M.
- Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 110, Issue D17
Radiative forcing in the ACCMIP historical and future climate simulations
journal, January 2013
- Shindell, D. T.; Lamarque, J. -F.; Schulz, M.
- Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Vol. 13, Issue 6
AerChemMIP: quantifying the effects of chemistry and aerosols in CMIP6
journal, January 2017
- Collins, William J.; Lamarque, Jean-François; Schulz, Michael
- Geoscientific Model Development, Vol. 10, Issue 2
The Reference Forward Model (RFM)
journal, January 2017
- Dudhia, Anu
- Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer, Vol. 186
An Overview of CMIP5 and the Experiment Design
journal, April 2012
- Taylor, Karl E.; Stouffer, Ronald J.; Meehl, Gerald A.
- Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Vol. 93, Issue 4
Strong present-day aerosol cooling implies a hot future
journal, June 2005
- Andreae, Meinrat O.; Jones, Chris D.; Cox, Peter M.
- Nature, Vol. 435, Issue 7046
The Dynamical Core, Physical Parameterizations, and Basic Simulation Characteristics of the Atmospheric Component AM3 of the GFDL Global Coupled Model CM3
journal, July 2011
- Donner, Leo J.; Wyman, Bruce L.; Hemler, Richard S.
- Journal of Climate, Vol. 24, Issue 13
Solar radiative line-by-line determination of water vapor absorption and water cloud extinction in inhomogeneous atmospheres
journal, January 1991
- Ramaswamy, V.; Freidenreich, S. M.
- Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 96, Issue D5
Intercomparison and evaluation of global aerosol microphysical properties among AeroCom models of a range of complexity
journal, January 2014
- Mann, G. W.; Carslaw, K. S.; Reddington, C. L.
- Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Vol. 14, Issue 9
THE WCRP CMIP3 Multimodel Dataset: A New Era in Climate Change Research
journal, September 2007
- Meehl, Gerald A.; Covey, Curt; Delworth, Thomas
- Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Vol. 88, Issue 9
The Radiative Forcing Model Intercomparison Project (RFMIP): experimental protocol for CMIP6
journal, January 2016
- Pincus, Robert; Forster, Piers M.; Stevens, Bjorn
- Geoscientific Model Development, Vol. 9, Issue 9
Volcanic contribution to decadal changes in tropospheric temperature
journal, February 2014
- Santer, Benjamin D.; Bonfils, Céline; Painter, Jeffrey F.
- Nature Geoscience, Vol. 7, Issue 3
CMIP5 Scientific Gaps and Recommendations for CMIP6
journal, January 2017
- Stouffer, R. J.; Eyring, V.; Meehl, G. A.
- Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Vol. 98, Issue 1
Tropical Tropospheric-Only Responses to Absorbing Aerosols
journal, April 2012
- Persad, Geeta G.; Ming, Yi; Ramaswamy, V.
- Journal of Climate, Vol. 25, Issue 7
Uncertainty in Model Climate Sensitivity Traced to Representations of Cumulus Precipitation Microphysics
journal, January 2016
- Zhao, Ming; Golaz, J. -C.; Held, I. M.
- Journal of Climate, Vol. 29, Issue 2
Intercomparison of shortwave radiative transfer schemes in global aerosol modeling: results from the AeroCom Radiative Transfer Experiment
journal, January 2013
- Randles, C. A.; Kinne, S.; Myhre, G.
- Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Vol. 13, Issue 5
The Continual Intercomparison of Radiation Codes: Results from Phase I: RESULTS FROM CIRC PHASE I
journal, March 2012
- Oreopoulos, Lazaros; Mlawer, Eli; Delamere, Jennifer
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, Vol. 117, Issue D6
The HITRAN2012 molecular spectroscopic database
journal, November 2013
- Rothman, L. S.; Gordon, I. E.; Babikov, Y.
- Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer, Vol. 130, p. 4-50
The Persistently Variable "Background" Stratospheric Aerosol Layer and Global Climate Change
journal, July 2011
- Solomon, S.; Daniel, J. S.; Neely, R. R.
- Science, Vol. 333, Issue 6044
MACv2-SP: a parameterization of anthropogenic aerosol optical properties and an associated Twomey effect for use in CMIP6
journal, January 2017
- Stevens, Bjorn; Fiedler, Stephanie; Kinne, Stefan
- Geoscientific Model Development, Vol. 10, Issue 1
MAC-v1: A new global aerosol climatology for climate studies: MAC-v1 for Climate Studies
journal, October 2013
- Kinne, Stefan; O'Donnel, Declan; Stier, Philip
- Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, Vol. 5, Issue 4
Connections Between Clouds, Radiation, and Midlatitude Dynamics: a Review
journal, April 2015
- Ceppi, Paulo; Hartmann, Dennis L.
- Current Climate Change Reports, Vol. 1, Issue 2
Two opposing effects of absorbing aerosols on global-mean precipitation: EFFECTS OF ABSORBING AEROSOLS ON PRECIPITATION
journal, July 2010
- Ming, Yi; Ramaswamy, V.; Persad, Geeta
- Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 37, Issue 13
Works referencing / citing this record:
A round Earth for climate models
journal, September 2019
- Prather, Michael J.; Hsu, Juno C.
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 116, Issue 39