Atmospheric aerosols (tropospheric and stratospheric) are of great importance to Copernicus because of their impacts on air quality and human health, visibility, the Earth’s climate, the stratospheric ozone layer, and continental and maritime ecosystems, requiring dedicated monitoring of their concentrations and properties at European and global scales. Aerosols are also becoming increasingly important in the context of numerical weather prediction as they affect clouds and radiation as well as assimilation of some types of satellite data.

Objectives

The objectives of the G-AER sub-project are:

• To build upon the GEMS project and further develop the aerosol scheme in the IFS for aerosol monitoring and forecast production,
• To develop and produce added-value core services from the G-IDAS aerosol analysis, such as aerosol climate forcing and a prototype monitoring of aerosol source and sink inversions,
• To demonstrate and document the value of the aerosol analysis and forecast service for short-term and medium-term weather prediction
• To liaise with intermediate- and end-users of aerosol services, both internal and external to the MACC project, focusing on the link with climate policy-makers.

To achieve the objectives, the sub-project has been structured into five main work packages:

• G-AER_1 - Aerosol service development and upgrade
• G-AER_2 - Aerosol source and sink inversion
• G-AER_3 - Monitoring of aerosol climate forcings
• G-AER_4 - AEROCOM service and validation
• G-AER_5 - Aerosol radiative impacts in NW P models

Short Description

Current MACC aerosol forecast and reanalysis are performed with a bulk aerosol scheme with a small number of aerosol variables (sulphate, black carbon, organic carbon, 3 bins of sea-salt and 3 bins of dust) which capture the main sources of natural and anthropogenic aerosols. The data assimilation relies on MODIS aerosol optical depth measurements and a 4D-Var approach which uses an adjoint of a reduced 1-variable aerosol scheme. The MACC project aims to upgrade this modelling capability and there is ongoing development towards a two-moment aerosol scheme (that resolves aerosol and mass concentrations of the main aerosol species) with a capability for stratospheric aerosols and a two-variable aerosol scheme for data assimilation of fine-mode and coarse-mode aerosol optical depth.

Partners

• Met Office
• Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique
• ECMWF
• Max Planck Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften
• University of Leeds
• Université Pierre et Marie Curie

Scientific Publications

Benedetti, A., J.-J. Morcrette, O. Boucher, A. Dethof, R. J. Engelen, M. Fisher, H. Flentjes, N. Huneeus, L. Jones, J. W. Kaiser, S. Kinne, A. Mangold, M. Razinger, A. J. Simmons, M. Suttie, and the GEMS-AER team, 2009: Aerosol analysis and forecast in the ECMWF Integrated Forecast System. Part II : Data assimilation, J. Geophys. Res., 114, D13205, doi:10.1029/2008JD011115.

Morcrette, J.-J., O. Boucher, L. Jones, D. Salmond, P. Bechtold, A. Beljaars, A. Benedetti, A. Bonet, J. W. Kaiser, M. Razinger, M. Schulz, S. Serrar, A. J. Simmons, M. Sofiev, M. Suttie, A. M. Tompkins, and A. Untch, 2009: Aerosol analysis and forecast in the ECMWF Integrated Forecast System. Part I: Forward modelling, J. Geophys. Res., 114, D06206, doi:10.1029/2008JD011235.