Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net 1680-7367 1680-7375 7 1 2007 10.5194/acpd-7-1699-2007 http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/7/1699/2007/ http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/7/1699/2007/acpd-7-1699-2007.html http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/7/1699/2007/acpd-7-1699-2007.pdf 1699 1723 2007-02-02 The effect of harmonized emissions on aerosol properties in global models &ndash; an AeroCom experiment C. Textor M. Schulz S. Guibert S. Kinne Y. Balkanski S. Bauer T. Berntsen T. Berglen O. Boucher M. Chin F. Dentener T. Diehl J. Feichter D. Fillmore P. Ginoux S. Gong A. Grini J. Hendricks L. Horowitz P. Huang I. S. A. Isaksen T. Iversen S. Kloster D. Koch A. Kirkevåg J. E. Kristjansson M. Krol A. Lauer J. F. Lamarque X. Liu V. Montanaro G. Myhre J. E. Penner G. Pitari S. Reddy Ø. Seland P. Stier T. Takemura X. Tie Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, Gif-sur-Yvette, France Max-Planck-Institut für Meteorologie, Hamburg, Germany Columbia University, GISS, New York, USA University of Oslo, Department of Geosciences, Oslo, Norway Laboratoire d'Optique Atmosphérique, Université des Sciences et Technologies de Lille, CNRS, Villeneuve d'Ascq, France European Commision, Joint Research Centre, Institute for Environment and Sustainability, Climate Change Unit, Italy NCAR, Boulder, Colorado, USA Battelle, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, USA NOAA, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton, New Jersey, USA ARQM Meteorological Service Canda, Toronto, Canada DLR-Institut für Physik der Atmosphäre, Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research Utrecht (IMAU) Utrecht University, The Netherlands University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA Universita degli Studi L’Aquila, Italy Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA Goddard Earth Sciences and Technology Center, University of Marylan Baltimore County, Baltimore, Maryland, USA Hadley Centre, Met Office, Exeter, United Kingdom Service d’Aéronomie, CNRS/UPMC/IPSL, Paris, France Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, USA The effects of unified aerosol sources on global aerosol fields simulated by different models are examined in this paper. We compare results from two AeroCom experiments, one with different (ExpA) and one with unified emissions, injection heights, and particle sizes at the source (ExpB). Surprisingly, harmonization of aerosol sources has only a small impact on the simulated diversity for aerosol burden, and consequently optical properties, as the results are largely controlled by model-specific transport, removal, chemistry (leading to the formation of secondary aerosols) and parameterizations of aerosol microphysics (e.g. the split between deposition pathways) and to a lesser extent on the spatial and temporal distributions of the (precursor) emissions. <br><br> The burdens of black carbon and especially sea salt become more coherent in ExpB only, because the large ExpA diversity for these two species was caused by few outliers. The experiment also indicated that despite prescribing emission fluxes and size distributions, ambiguities in the implementation in individual models can lead to substantial differences. <br><br> These results indicate the need for a better understanding of aerosol life cycles at process level (including spatial dispersal and interaction with meteorological parameters) in order to obtain more reliable results from global aerosol simulations. This is particularly important as such model results are used to assess the consequences of specific air pollution abatement strategies. Dentener, F., Kinne, S., Bond, T., Boucher, O., Cofala, J., Generos, S., Ginoux, P., Gong, S., Hoelzemann, J. J., Ito, A., Marelli, L., Penner, J., Putaud, J.-P., Textor, C., Schulz, M., Werf, G. R. v. d., and Wilson, J.: Emissions of primary aerosol and precursor gases for the years 2000 and 1750 prescribed data-sets for AeroCom, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 6, 4321&ndash;4344, 2006. IPCC, Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 944 pp., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2001. Kinne, S., Schulz, M., Textor, C., Guibert, S., Balkanski, Y., Bauer, S. E., Berntsen, T., Berglen, T., Boucher, O., Chin, M., Collins, W., Dentener, F., Diehl, T., Easter, R., Feichter, H., Fillmore, D., Ghan, S., Ginoux, P., Gong, S., Grini, A., Hendricks, J., Herzog, M., Horowitz, L., Huang, P., Isaksen, I., Iversen, T., Koch, D., Kirkevåg, A., Kloster, S., Krol, M., Kristjansson, E., Lauer, A., Lamarque, J. F., Lesins, G., Liu, X., Lohmann, U., Montanaro, V., Myhre, G., Penner, J., Pitari, G., Reddy, S., Seland, Ø., Stier, P., Takemura, T., and Tie, X.: An AeroCom initial assessment - optical properties in aerosol component modules of global models, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 6, 1815&ndash;1834, 2006. Meij, A. d., Krol, M., Dentener, F., Vignati, E., Cuvelier, C., and Thunis, P.: The sensitivity of aerosol in Europe to two different emission inventories and temporal distribution of emissions, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 6, 4287&ndash;4309, 2006. Schulz, M., Textor, C., Kinne, S., Balkanski, Y., Bauer, S. E., Berntsen, T., Berglen, T., Boucher, O., Dentener, F., Grini, A., Guibert, S., Iversen, T., Koch, D., Kirkevåg A., Liu, X., Montanaro, V., Myhre, G., Penner, J., Pitari, G., Reddy, S., Seland, Ø., Stier, P., and Takemura, T.: Radiative forcing by aerosols as derived from the AeroCom present-day and pre-industrial simulations, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 6, 5225&ndash;5246, 2006. Stier, P., Feichter, J., Kloster, S., Vignati, E., and Wilson, J.: Emission-Induced Nonlinearities in the Global Aerosol System: Results from the ECHAM5-HAM Aerosol-Climate Model, J. Climate, 19, 3845&ndash;3862, 2006. Textor, C. , Schulz, M., Guibert, S., Kinne, S., Balkanski, Y., Bauer, S., Berntsen, T., Berglen, T., Boucher, O., Chin, M., Dentener, F., Diehl, T., Easter, R., Feichter, H., Fillmore, D., Ghan, S., Ginoux, P., Gong, S., Grini, A., Hendricks, J., Horowitz, L., Huang, P., Isaksen, I., Iversen, T., Kloster, S., Koch, D., Kirkevåg, A., Kristjansson, J. E., Krol, M., Lauer, A., Lamarque, J. F., Liu, X., Montanaro, V., Myhre, G., Penner, J., Pitari, G., Reddy, S., Seland, Ø., Stier, P., Takemura, T. and Tie, X.: Analysis and quantification of the diversities of aerosol life cycles within AeroCom, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 6, 1777&ndash;1813, 2006. Zhang, S., Penner, J. E., and Torres, O.: Inverse modeling of biomass burning emissions using Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer aerosol index for 1997, J. Geophys. Res., 110, D21306, doi:10.1029/2004jd005738, 2005.