The Sectional Stratospheric Sulfate Aerosol module (S3A-v1) within the LMDZ general circulation model: description and evaluation against stratospheric aerosol observations

Christoph Kleinschmitt 1, 2 Olivier Boucher 2 Slimane Bekki 3 François Lott 2 Ulrich Platt 1
1 IUP - Institute of Environmental Physics [Heidelberg]
2 LMD - Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (UMR 8539)
3 STRATO - LATMOS
LATMOS - Laboratoire Atmosphères, Milieux, Observations Spatiales
Abstract : Stratospheric aerosols play an important role in the climate system by affecting the Earth's radiative budget as well as atmospheric chemistry, and the capabilities to simulate them interactively within global models are continuously improving. It is important to represent accurately both aerosol microphysical and atmospheric dynamical processes because together they affect the size distribution and the residence time of the aerosol particles in the stratosphere. The newly developed LMDZ-S3A model presented in this article uses a sectional approach for sulfate particles in the stratosphere and includes the relevant microphysical processes. It allows full interaction between aerosol radiative effects (e.g. radiative heating) and atmospheric dynamics, including e.g. an internally generated quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) in the stratosphere. Sulfur chemistry is semi-prescribed via climatological lifetimes. LMDZ-S3A reasonably reproduces aerosol observations in periods of low (background) and high (volcanic) stratospheric sulfate loading, but tends to overestimate the number of small particles and to underestimate the number of large particles. Thus, it may serve as a tool to study the climate impacts of volcanic eruptions, as well as the deliberate anthropogenic injection of aerosols into the stratosphere, which has been proposed as a method of geoengineering to abate global warming.
Document type :
Journal articles
Complete list of metadatas
https://hal-insu.archives-ouvertes.fr/insu-01649782
Contributor : Catherine Cardon <>
Submitted on : Monday, November 27, 2017 - 5:31:43 PM
Last modification on : Friday, January 10, 2020 - 3:42:31 PM

Links full text

openaccess

Identifiers

Collections

INSU | CNRS | X | LATMOS | UPMC | ENS-PARIS | UVSQ | X-LMD | PARISTECH | PSL | LMD | ENPC-LMD | UNIV-PARIS-SACLAY | ENPC | X-DEP-MECA | SORBONNE-UNIVERSITE | SU-SCIENCES

Citation

Christoph Kleinschmitt, Olivier Boucher, Slimane Bekki, François Lott, Ulrich Platt. The Sectional Stratospheric Sulfate Aerosol module (S3A-v1) within the LMDZ general circulation model: description and evaluation against stratospheric aerosol observations. Geoscientific Model Development, European Geosciences Union, 2017, 10 (9), pp.3359 - 3378. ⟨10.5194/gmd-10-3359-2017⟩. ⟨insu-01649782⟩

Export

BibTeX TEI DC DCterms EndNote

Share

Metrics

Record views

240

Contact

Informations

CCSD