Model evaluation of short-lived climate forcers for the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme: a multi-species, multi-model study

• Main Authors: Whaley, Cynthia, Mahmood, Rashed, von Salzen, Knut, Winter, Barbara, Eckhardt, Sabine, Arnold, Stephen, Beagley, Stephen, Becagli, Silvia, Chien, Rong-You, Christensen, Jesper, Damani, Sujay, Eleftheriadis, Kostas, Evangeliou, Nikolaos, Faluvegi, Gregory, Flanner, Mark, Fu, Joshua, Gauss, Michael, Giardi, Fabio, Gong, Wanmin, Hjorth, Jens, Huang, Lin, Im, Ulas, Kanaya, Yugo, Krishnan, Srinath, Klimont, Zbigniew, Kühn, Thomas, Langner, Joakim, Law, Kathy S., Marelle, Louis, Massling, Andreas, Olivié, Dirk, Onishi, Tatsuo, Oshima, Naga, Peng, Yiran, Plummer, David, Popovicheva, Olga, Pozzoli, Luca, Raut, Jean-Christophe, Sand, Maria, Saunders, Laura, Schmale, Julia, Sharma, Sangeeta, Skov, Henrik, Taketani, Fumikazu, Thomas, Manu, Traversi, Rita, Tsigaridis, Kostas, Tsyro, Svetlana, Turnock, Steven, Vitale, Vito
• Other Authors: Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis (CCCma), Environment and Climate Change Canada, Barcelona Supercomputing Center - Centro Nacional de Supercomputacion (BSC - CNS), Department of Geography Montréal, McGill University = Université McGill Montréal, Canada, Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU), Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Science Leeds (ICAS), School of Earth and Environment Leeds (SEE), University of Leeds-University of Leeds, Climate Chemistry Measurements and Research, Norwegian Meteorological Institute Oslo (MET), The University of Tennessee Knoxville, Department of Environmental Science Roskilde (ENVS), Aarhus University Aarhus, Institute of Nuclear and Radiological Sciences and Technology, Energy and Safety (INRASTES), National Center for Scientific Research "Demokritos" (NCSR), NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Center for Climate Systems Research New York (CCSR), Columbia University New York, University of Michigan Ann Arbor, University of Michigan System, Dipartimento di Chimica "Ugo schifo", Università degli Studi di Firenze = University of Florence Firenze (UNIFI), Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), Center for International Climate and Environmental Research Oslo (CICERO), University of Oslo (UiO), International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis Laxenburg (IIASA), Department of Applied Physics Kuopio, University of Kuopio, Atmospheric Research Centre of Eastern Finland, Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI), Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI), TROPO - LATMOS, Laboratoire Atmosphères, Milieux, Observations Spatiales (LATMOS), Sorbonne Université (SU)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS), Sorbonne Université (SU)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS), Meteorological Research Institute Tsukuba (MRI), Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), Center for Earth System Science Beijing (CESS), Tsinghua University Beijing (THU), Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU), European Commission - Joint Research Centre Ispra (JRC), University of Toronto, Extreme Environments Research Laboratory (EERL), Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Met Office Hadley Centre for Climate Change (MOHC), United Kingdom Met Office Exeter, Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics Oxford (AOPP), University of Oxford Oxford
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2021
• Subjects: [PHYS.PHYS.PHYS-AO-PH]Physics [physics]/Physics [physics]/Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics [physics.ao-ph]; [SDU.STU.CL]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Climatology; Arctic; AMAP; black carbon; Global warming
• Online Access: https://hal-insu.archives-ouvertes.fr/insu-03454867; https://hal-insu.archives-ouvertes.fr/insu-03454867/document; https://hal-insu.archives-ouvertes.fr/insu-03454867/file/acp-2021-975.pdf; https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2021-975

International audience The Arctic atmosphere is warming rapidly and its relatively pristine environment is sensitive to the long-range transport of atmospheric pollutants. While carbon dioxide is the main cause for global warming, short-lived climate forcers (SLCFs) such as methane, ozone, and particles also play a role in Arctic climate on near-term time scales. Atmospheric modelling is critical for understanding the abundance and distribution of SLCFs throughout the Arctic atmosphere, and is used as a tool towards determining SLCF impacts on climate and health in the present and in future emissions scenarios. In this study, we evaluate 18 state-of-the-art atmospheric and Earth system models, assessing their representation of Arctic and Northern Hemisphere atmospheric SLCF distributions, considering a wide range of different chemical species (methane, tropospheric ozone and its precursors, black carbon, sulfate, organic aerosol, and particulate matter) and multiple observational datasets. Model simulations over four years (2008-2009 and 2014-2015) conducted for the 2021 Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) SLCF assessment report are thoroughly evaluated against satellite, ground, ship and aircraft-based observations. The results show a large range in model performance, with no one particular model or model type performing well for all regions and all SLCF species. The multi-model mean was able to represent the general features of SLCFs in the Arctic, though vertical mixing, long-range transport, deposition, and wildfire emissions remain highly uncertain processes. These need better representation within atmospheric models to improve their simulation of SLCFs in the Arctic environment.