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

VL - 17

SP - 9677

EP - 9696

JO - Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics

JF - Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics

SN - 1680-7316

IS - 15

ER -