Evaluating Uncertainties in Marine Biogeochemical Models: Benchmarking Aerosol Precursors
Abstract
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 suchmore »
- Authors:
-
- Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- New Mexico Inst. of Mining and Technology, Socorro, NM (United States)
- Univ. of Alaska, Fairbanks, AK (United States)
- Univ. of California, Irvine, CA (United States)
- Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC). Biological and Environmental Research (BER); National Science Foundation (NSF); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1557764
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1902816
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-19-21266
Journal ID: ISSN 2073-4433; ATMOCZ
- Grant/Contract Number:
- 89233218CNA000001; AC05-00OR22725
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Atmosphere (Basel)
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Name: Atmosphere (Basel); Journal Volume: 9; Journal Issue: 5; Journal ID: ISSN 2073-4433
- Publisher:
- MDPI
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 58 GEOSCIENCES; Earth Sciences; biogeochemistry; benchmarking; biogenic volatile organic compounds; dissolved organic carbon; sea-air flux; marine aerosols
Citation Formats
Ogunro, Oluwaseun O., Elliott, Scott M., Wingenter, Oliver W., Deal, Clara, Fu, Weiwei, Collier, Nathan, and Hoffman, Forrest M. Evaluating Uncertainties in Marine Biogeochemical Models: Benchmarking Aerosol Precursors. United States: N. p., 2018.
Web. doi:10.3390/atmos9050184.
Ogunro, Oluwaseun O., Elliott, Scott M., Wingenter, Oliver W., Deal, Clara, Fu, Weiwei, Collier, Nathan, & Hoffman, Forrest M. Evaluating Uncertainties in Marine Biogeochemical Models: Benchmarking Aerosol Precursors. United States. https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos9050184
Ogunro, Oluwaseun O., Elliott, Scott M., Wingenter, Oliver W., Deal, Clara, Fu, Weiwei, Collier, Nathan, and Hoffman, Forrest M. Sat .
"Evaluating Uncertainties in Marine Biogeochemical Models: Benchmarking Aerosol Precursors". United States. https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos9050184. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1557764.
@article{osti_1557764,
title = {Evaluating Uncertainties in Marine Biogeochemical Models: Benchmarking Aerosol Precursors},
author = {Ogunro, Oluwaseun O. and Elliott, Scott M. and Wingenter, Oliver W. and Deal, Clara and Fu, Weiwei and Collier, Nathan and Hoffman, Forrest M.},
abstractNote = {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.},
doi = {10.3390/atmos9050184},
journal = {Atmosphere (Basel)},
number = 5,
volume = 9,
place = {United States},
year = {Sat May 12 00:00:00 EDT 2018},
month = {Sat May 12 00:00:00 EDT 2018}
}
Web of Science
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Works referencing / citing this record:
Ocean Contributions to the Marine Boundary Layer Aerosol Budget
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