Comparison of particle number size distribution trends in ground measurements and climate models

• Published in: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
• Main Authors: V. Leinonen, H. Kokkola, T. Yli-Juuti, T. Mielonen, T. Kühn, T. Nieminen, S. Heikkinen, T. Miinalainen, T. Bergman, K. Carslaw, S. Decesari, M. Fiebig, T. Hussein, N. Kivekäs, R. Krejci, M. Kulmala, A. Leskinen, A. Massling, N. Mihalopoulos, J. P. Mulcahy, S. M. Noe, T. van Noije, F. M. O'Connor, C. O'Dowd, D. Olivie, J. B. Pernov, T. Petäjä, Ø. Seland, M. Schulz, C. E. Scott, H. Skov, E. Swietlicki, T. Tuch, A. Wiedensohler, A. Virtanen, S. Mikkonen
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Copernicus Publications 2022
• Subjects: Physics; QC1-999; Chemistry; QD1-999; Arctic; Aitken
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-12873-2022; https://doaj.org/article/95637b210b66421593d3d1b0970ea860

Despite a large number of studies, out of all drivers of radiative forcing, the effect of aerosols has the largest uncertainty in global climate model radiative forcing estimates. There have been studies of aerosol optical properties in climate models, but the effects of particle number size distribution need a more thorough inspection. We investigated the trends and seasonality of particle number concentrations in nucleation, Aitken, and accumulation modes at 21 measurement sites in Europe and the Arctic. For 13 of those sites, with longer measurement time series, we compared the field observations with the results from five climate models, namely EC-Earth3, ECHAM-M7, ECHAM-SALSA, NorESM1.2, and UKESM1. This is the first extensive comparison of detailed aerosol size distribution trends between in situ observations from Europe and five earth system models (ESMs). We found that the trends of particle number concentrations were mostly consistent and decreasing in both measurements and models. However, for many sites, climate models showed weaker decreasing trends than the measurements. Seasonal variability in measured number concentrations, quantified by the ratio between maximum and minimum monthly number concentration, was typically stronger at northern measurement sites compared to other locations. Models had large differences in their seasonal representation, and they can be roughly divided into two categories: for EC-Earth and NorESM, the seasonal cycle was relatively similar for all sites, and for other models the pattern of seasonality varied between northern and southern sites. In addition, the variability in concentrations across sites varied between models, some having relatively similar concentrations for all sites, whereas others showed clear differences in concentrations between remote and urban sites. To conclude, although all of the model simulations had identical input data to describe anthropogenic mass emissions, trends in differently sized particles vary among the models due to assumptions in ...