TY - JOUR
T1 - Regional effects of atmospheric aerosols on temperature
T2 - An evaluation of an ensemble of online coupled models
AU - Baró, Rocío
AU - Palacios-Peña, Laura
AU - Baklanov, Alexander
AU - Balzarini, Alessandra
AU - Brunner, Dominik
AU - Forkel, Renate
AU - Hirtl, Marcus
AU - Honzak, Luka
AU - Luis Pérez, Juan
AU - Pirovano, Guido
AU - San José, Roberto
AU - Schröder, Wolfram
AU - Werhahn, Johannes
AU - Wolke, Ralf
AU - Åabkar, Rahela
AU - Jiménez-Guerrero, Pedro
PY - 2017/8/11
Y1 - 2017/8/11
N2 - The climate effect of atmospheric aerosols is associated with their influence on the radiative budget of the Earth due to the direct aerosol-radiation interactions (ARIs) and indirect effects, resulting from aerosol-cloud-radiation interactions (ACIs). Online coupled meteorology-chemistry models permit the description of these effects on the basis of simulated atmospheric aerosol concentrations, although there is still some uncertainty associated with the use of these models. Thus, the objective of this work is to assess whether the inclusion of atmospheric aerosol radiative feedbacks of an ensemble of online coupled models improves the simulation results for maximum, mean and minimum temperature at 2m over Europe. The evaluated models outputs originate from EuMetChem COST Action ES1004 simulations for Europe, differing in the inclusion (or omission) of ARI and ACI in the various models. The cases studies cover two important atmospheric aerosol episodes over Europe in the year 2010: (i) a heat wave event and a forest fire episode (July-August 2010) and (ii) a more humid episode including a Saharan desert dust outbreak in October 2010. The simulation results are evaluated against observational data from the E-OBS gridded database. The results indicate that, although there is only a slight improvement in the bias of the simulation results when including the radiative feedbacks, the spatiotemporal variability and correlation coefficients are improved for the cases under study when atmospheric aerosol radiative effects are included.
AB - The climate effect of atmospheric aerosols is associated with their influence on the radiative budget of the Earth due to the direct aerosol-radiation interactions (ARIs) and indirect effects, resulting from aerosol-cloud-radiation interactions (ACIs). Online coupled meteorology-chemistry models permit the description of these effects on the basis of simulated atmospheric aerosol concentrations, although there is still some uncertainty associated with the use of these models. Thus, the objective of this work is to assess whether the inclusion of atmospheric aerosol radiative feedbacks of an ensemble of online coupled models improves the simulation results for maximum, mean and minimum temperature at 2m over Europe. The evaluated models outputs originate from EuMetChem COST Action ES1004 simulations for Europe, differing in the inclusion (or omission) of ARI and ACI in the various models. The cases studies cover two important atmospheric aerosol episodes over Europe in the year 2010: (i) a heat wave event and a forest fire episode (July-August 2010) and (ii) a more humid episode including a Saharan desert dust outbreak in October 2010. The simulation results are evaluated against observational data from the E-OBS gridded database. The results indicate that, although there is only a slight improvement in the bias of the simulation results when including the radiative feedbacks, the spatiotemporal variability and correlation coefficients are improved for the cases under study when atmospheric aerosol radiative effects are included.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85027340999&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.5194/acp-17-9677-2017
DO - 10.5194/acp-17-9677-2017
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85027340999
SN - 1680-7316
VL - 17
SP - 9677
EP - 9696
JO - Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
JF - Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
IS - 15
ER -
