The aerosol-climate model ECHAM5-HAM

Creators: Stier, P.; Feichter, J.; Kinne, S.; Kloster, S.; Vignati, E.; Wilson, J.; Ganzeveld, L.; Tegen, I.; Werner, M.; Balkanski, Y.; Schulz, M.; Boucher, O.; Minikin, A.; Petzold, A.

Abstract

The aerosol-climate modelling system ECHAM5-HAM is introduced. It is based on a flexible microphysical approach and, as the number of externally imposed parameters is minimised, allows the application in a wide range of climate regimes. ECHAM5-HAM predicts the evolution of an ensemble of microphysically interacting internally- and externally-mixed aerosol populations as well as their size-distribution and composition. The size-distribution is represented by a superposition of log-normal modes. In the current setup, the major global aerosol compounds sulfate (SU), black carbon (BC), particulate organic matter (POM), sea salt (SS), and mineral dust (DU) are included. The simulated global annual mean aerosol burdens (lifetimes) for the year 2000 are for SU: 0.80 Tg(S) (3.9 days), for BC: 0.11 Tg (5.4 days), for POM: 0.99 Tg (5.4 days), for SS: 10.5 Tg (0.8 days), and for DU: 8.28 Tg (4.6 days). An extensive evaluation with in-situ and remote sensing measurements underscores that the model results are generally in good agreement with observations of the global aerosol system. The simulated global annual mean aerosol optical depth (AOD) is with 0.14 in excellent agreement with an estimate derived from AERONET measurements (0.14) and a composite derived from MODIS-MISR satellite retrievals (0.16). Regionally, the deviations are not negligible. However, the main patterns of AOD attributable to anthropogenic activity are reproduced.

Additional Information

© 2005 Author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. Received: 2 September 2004 – Published in Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss.: 22 September 2004 - Revised: 4 March 2005 – Accepted: 15 March 2005 – Published: 31 March 2005 We wish to thank J. Prospero and D. Savoie (University ofMiami) for providing the compilation of multi-annual surface observations and to B. Holben (NASA Goddard) for the use of the AERONET data. Many thanks also to R. van Dingenen (JRC, Ispra) for helping us with the size-distribution measurements and to S. Guilbert (LSCE, Gif-sur-Yvette) for her help with the handling of the IMPROVE, EMEP, and GAW datasets. We are also grateful to M. Schultz (MPI for Meteorology, Hamburg) for providing the MOZART chemistry fields. F. Dentener (JRC, Ispra) is to be thanked for his support with the emission data and many helpful discussions. Our thanks extend to our colleagues (MPI for Meteorology, Hamburg) L. Kornblueh, S. Rast, A. Rhodin, E. Roeckner, and U. Schulzweida for their constant support with the ECHAM5-HAM model development, and to R. Hommel and C. Timmreck for fruitful discussions about the aerosol module and the help with the nucleation parameterisation. U. Koerner (DKRZ, Hamburg) is to be thanked for the support with the code optimisation. We would also like to acknowledge the support of the German DEKLIM project, of the International Max Planck Research School for Earth System Modelling, and of the EU project PHOENICS (EVK2-CT-2001-00098).

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