Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net 1680-7367 1680-7375 8 4 2008 10.5194/acpd-8-16291-2008 http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/8/16291/2008/ http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/8/16291/2008/acpd-8-16291-2008.html http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/8/16291/2008/acpd-8-16291-2008.pdf 16291 16333 2008-08-26 Uncertainty in global CCN concentrations from uncertain aerosol nucleation and primary emission rates J. R. Pierce jeffrey.robert.pierce@gmail.com P. J. Adams Center for Atmospheric Particle Studies, Carnegie Mellon Univ., Pittsburgh, PA, USA now at: Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA, 20771, USA The indirect effect of aerosols on climate is highly uncertain and limits our ability to assess anthropogenic climate change. The foundation of this uncertainty is uncertainty in the number of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), which itself stems from uncertainty in aerosol nucleation, primary emission and growth rates. In this paper, we use a global general circulation model with aerosol microphysics to assess how the uncertainties in aerosol nucleation, emission and growth rates affect our prediction of CCN(0.2%) concentrations. Using two nucleation rate parameterizations that differ in globally averaged nucleation rate by 10⁶, the tropospheric average CCN(0.2%) concentrations vary by 17% and the boundary layer average vary by 12%. This sensitivity of tropospheric average CCN(0.2%) to the nucleation parameterizations increases to 33% and 20% when the total primary emissions are reduced by a factor of 3 and the SOA condensation rates are increased by a factor of 3.5, respectively. These results show that it is necessary to understand better global nucleation rates when determining CCN concentrations. When primary emissions rates are varied by a factor of 3 while using the slower nucleation rate parameterization, tropospheric average CCN(0.2%) concentrations also vary by 17%, but boundary layer average vary by 40%. Using the faster nucleation rate parameterization, these changes drop to 3% and 22%, respectively. These results show the importance of reducing uncertainties in primary emissions, which appear from these results to be somewhat more important for CCN than the much larger uncertainties in nucleation. These results also show that uncertainties in nucleation and primary emissions are more important when sufficient condensable material is available to grow them to CCN sizes. 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