PNNL

Abstract

The AeroCom exercise diagnoses multi-component aerosol modules in global modeling. In an initial assessment global fields for mass and for mid-visible aerosol optical thickness (aot) were compared among aerosol component modules of 21 different global models. There is general agreement among models for the annual global mean of component combined aot. At 0.12 to 0.14, simulated aot values are at the lower end of global averages suggested by remote sensing from ground (AERONET ca 0.14) and space (MODIS-MISR composite ca 0.16). More detailed comparisons, however, reveal that larger differences in regional distribution and significant differences in compositional mixture have remained. Of particular concern is the large model diversity for contributions by dust and carbon, because it leads to significant uncertainty in aerosol absorption (aab). Since not only aot but also aab influence the aerosol impact on the radiative energy-balance, aerosol (direct) forcing uncertainty in modeling is larger than differences in aot might suggest. New diagnostic approaches are proposed to trace model differences in terms of aerosol processing and transport: These include the prescription of common input (e.g. amount, size and injection of aerosol component emissions) and the use of observational capabilities from ground (e.g. measurements networks) and space (e.g. correlations between retrieved aerosol and cloud properties).