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A Case Study on the Impact of Aerosol-Radiation Feedback on Meteorology and Regional Pollutant Distributions

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Abstract

The impact of aerosol-radiation feedback on meteorology and subsequent changes in pollutant distributions over Europe and the North Atlantic were investigated with WRF/Chem. The case studies for two summer months show that the direct effect of aerosol particles on solar radiation is dominated by semi-direct effects that are developing after a few days. Strong deviations from the baseline case, which does not include any feedback, were found for the global radiation over the North Atlantic and Northern Europe when the indirect aerosol radiative effect is considered.

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References

  1. Forkel R, Werhahn J, McKeen S, Peckham S, Grell G, Suppan P (2012) Effect of aerosol-radiation feedback on regional air quality – a case study with WRF/Chem. Atmos Environ 53:202–211. doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2011.10.009

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Acknowledgments

The present study was partly financed by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Also we like to acknowledge the AQMEII initiative for initiating this modelling exercise.

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Correspondence to R. Forkel .

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Questions and Answers

Questioner Name: Nicholas Savage

Q: Would data assimilation be a way to balance between needing a realistic simulation and allowing indirect and direct effects develop and will you do it?

A: Data assimilation a good thing for generating good initial conditions. This is also the case when I do a hindcast in the same way as a forecast is made, i.e. the hindcast episode is composed of a sequence of single runs in ‘forecast’ mode. This allows for the development of aerosol indirect and semi-direct effects. However, I hope that it is sufficient for our AQMEII simulation that we start each of the ‘forecast’ cycles with initial conditions which are derived from a meteorological reanalysis and will not need anything extra.

Nevertheless, the question remains, whether this procedure should be applied e.g. daily or with some other frequency. This frequency will certainly determine how strong the meteorology of the regional simulation is attached to the reanalysis (or observational data) and to which extent semi-direct effects can develop and to which amount they are suppressed.

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© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Forkel, R., Werhahn, J., McKeen, S.A., Peckham, S.E., Grell, G.A., Suppan, P. (2014). A Case Study on the Impact of Aerosol-Radiation Feedback on Meteorology and Regional Pollutant Distributions. In: Steyn, D., Builtjes, P., Timmermans, R. (eds) Air Pollution Modeling and its Application XXII. NATO Science for Peace and Security Series C: Environmental Security. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5577-2_60

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