Abstract
Clouds droplets are directly dependent on aerosols that are present in the atmosphere and on their probabilities to act as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN). So, it is necessary to study aerosols distributions native to different air masses in order to understand cloud droplets distributions. Sensitivity tests, using WRF‐chem (Weather Research and Forecast), should allow an improvement in the knowledge of aerosol properties and their impacts on cloud droplets and precipitation. From this perspective, simulations for various air masses are simulated with WRF-chem using RADM2 (Stockwell et al., J. Geophys Res, 95:16343–16367, 1990) chemical mechanism associated with MADE/SORGAM aerosol module (Ackermann et al., Atmos Environ, 32(17):2981–2999, 1998) which dissociates aerosols into three modes: Aitken, accumulation and coarse modes. Furthermore, comparisons are presented between model outputs and observation data from the puy de Dôme site. This site, part of the ACTRIS network, has been equipped with many probes in order to characterize the physical, chemical and optical properties of aerosol particles, to quantify gases (O3, CO, CO2, NO, NO2, …), to measure radiation and to document typical meteorological parameters and in particular cloud parameters (cloud water content, cloud droplet concentrations and mean radius).
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Questions and Answers
Questioner Name: Johannes Bieser
Q: How did you create the model emissions? (temporal and vertical disaggregation, interpolation, PM speciation, biogenic emissions)
A: Anthropogenic emissions used in the model do not have a temporal evolution during the day and are produced only at surface level.
For gases such as non-methane volatile organics compounds (NMVOC), some of emitted species are lumped together into one model species. First, gaseous species are differentiated using IPCC (2007). Then, they are lumped in model species according to their aggregation factor, detailed in Middleton et al. [2].
To initialize PM, four kinds of emissions are used: PM2.5, PM10, elemental carbon (EC) and organic carbon (OC). Concerning PM2.5, they are divided between unidentified PM25, sulfate and nitrate particulate matter. The others are allocated to PM10, EC and OC respectively. For aerosol species, there are two categories: one for the Aitken mode of the aerosol distribution and one for the accumulation mode. Thus, 20 % of the emitted specie is allocated to the Aitken mode and 80 % to the Accumulation mode.
Biogenic emissions are coming from MEGAN which uses global emissions dataset with 1 km spatial resolution for the year 2003.
Questioner Name: SebnemAksoyoglusloan
Q: In both cases (WRF-Chem and WRF-CHIMERE), the meteorological model is the same, WRF. Was there any difference between two models with respect to meteorology, precipitation? If yes, where does the difference come from?
A: WRF-Chem is an online model whereas WRF-CHIMERE is an offline model. Thus, using WRF-Chem, feedbacks of aerosols and gaseous species on meteorological processes are allowed that’s why we can say that precipitation and cloud formation are directly impacted and different between the two models. Also, a two-moment microphysical scheme is implemented in WRF-Chem.
Questioner Name: GolamSarwar
Q: Model predicted aerosol nitrate compare well with observed data. HNO3 can be formed by homogeneous as well as heterogeneous conversion of N2O5 into HNO3. Does the model account for heterogeneous conversion of N2O5 into HNO3?
A: Even if the heterogeneous reaction of N2O5 plays an important role in HNO3 formation, especially during nighttime, and consequently on aerosol nitrate [10], it is not represented in the chemical mechanism that we use (RADM2/MADE/SORGAM). However, it is possible to run WRF-Chem with MOSAIC aerosol scheme [11] which includes the N2O5 heterogeneous reaction scheme of Bertram and Thornton [12] based upon laboratory experiments.
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Barbet, C., Deguillaume, L., Chaumerliac, N. (2014). Impact of Aerosol Properties on Cloud and Precipitation Formation. 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_26
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5577-2_26
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