Dust emissions related to anthropogenic activities (i.e., anthropogenic dust (AD)) is not represented in most global climate models and its radiative impact remains unassessed. In this study, we develop a new and physically based method to parameterize AD emission based on the DOE’s Energy Exascale Earth System Model version 1 (E3SMv1). This method relates AD emission to the crop land use fraction in the E3SMv1 land component. Major AD sources simulated by our parameterization include those over Central America, the Sahel, North India, and North China. The annual averaged AD emission is 567 Tg yr-1 in present-day (year 2000), which contributes to 13.3 % of total dust emission. Model evaluation against satellite and ground-based observations shows that the new parameterization can represent AD emissions and global dust cycle reasonably well. We find that the total dust emission increases by 13 % (495 Tg yr-1) from 1850 to 2000 mainly due to the cropland land use fraction changes, which induces a net dust direct effective radiative forcing of -0.041 W m-2 at top of the atmosphere. This AD-induced cooling exceeds 10% of the total anthropogenic aerosol direct effective radiative forcing from 1750 to 2014 estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report. Our findings indicate an important role of AD in the regional and global climate changes, which should be included in future climate change assessments.

It is still challenging to reproduce marine boundary layer (MBL) clouds well in large-scale models despite their importance to the Earth’s radiation budget and hydrological cycle. This study evaluates MBL and clouds in the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) version 2. The E3SM simulation results are compared with remote sensing and reanalysis data during the Cloud System Evolution in the Trades (CSET) field campaign to better understand stratocumulus to cumulus cloud transition (SCT) over the northeast Pacific. E3SM results are extracted along the CSET Lagrangian trajectories. The comparison shows that the E3SM simulation applying horizontal wind nudging performs well in reproducing thermodynamic variables of the MBL and evolution trends of cloud variables along the trajectories. However, substantial overestimations of aerosol and cloud drop number ($N_d$) are observed, which is explained as an issue with version 2 of the model. Cloud fraction (CF) does decrease from the Californian coast to Hawaii in the E3SM simulation, but most CF values indicate an overcast or almost clear sky, which differ with satellite and reanalysis data. The effect of $N_d$ overestimation on CF evolution is assessed via prescribed $N_d$ simulations. Those simulations with $N_d$ modifications show negligible CF changes. A comparison of estimated inversion strength (EIS) also shows that the simulated EIS values are similar to those of reanalysis data. Our study suggests that cloud macrophysics and boundary layer processes are more important in improving the simulation rather than improving the model’s dynamics or cloud microphysics to capture SCT better in the model.

Skillful representation of tropical variability and diurnal cycle of precipitation has remained a challenge in global atmosphere models, and often improvements in the variability lead to degradation in the mean-state. Here, we introduce a configuration of the E3SM Atmosphere Model with a new microphysics scheme and several enhancements to the deep convective scheme that improves the variability while keeping the mean-state climatology largely unchanged. The new configuration improves various modes of convectively-coupled equatorial waves, with increased strength of Kelvin waves and more coherent eastward propagation of the Madden Julian Oscillation from the Indian Ocean to the central Pacific Ocean. The same configuration also improves both the phase and amplitude of the diurnal cycle of precipitation, particularly over the continental United States in the boreal summer and over Tropical land regions. Previous studies have shown that, individually taken, some of the deep convective enhancements can improve certain aspects of the variability, and here we show that combining their effects can lead to robust improvements in the variability. This model configuration can form the basis for future studies to examine the response of tropical and diurnal variability under various climate states and their relationships with other modes of variability.

This study evaluates high-latitude stratiform mixed-phase clouds (SMPC) in the atmosphere model of the newly released Energy Exascale Earth System Model version 2 (EAMv2) by utilizing one-year-long ground-based remote sensing measurements from the U.S. Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation and Measurement (ARM) Program. A nudging approach is applied to model simulations for a better comparison with the ARM observations. Observed and modeled SMPCs are collocated to evaluate their macro- and microphysical properties at the ARM North Slope of Alaska (NSA) site in the Arctic and the McMurdo (AWR) site in the Antarctic. We found that EAMv2 overestimates (underestimates) SMPC frequency of occurrence at the NSA (AWR) site nearly all year round. However, the model captures the observed larger cloud frequency of occurrence at the NSA site. For collocated SMPCs, the annual statistics of observed cloud macrophysics are generally reproduced at the NSA site, while at the AWR site, there are larger biases. Compared to the AWR site, the lower cloud boundaries and the warmer cloud top temperature observed at NSA are well simulated. On the other hand, simulated cloud phases are substantially biased at each location. The model largely overestimates liquid water path at NSA, whereas it is frequently underestimated at AWR. Meanwhile, the simulated ice water path is underestimated at NSA, but at AWR, it is comparable to observations. As a result, the observed hemispheric difference in cloud phase partitioning is misrepresented in EAMv2. This study implies that continuous improvement in cloud microphysics is needed for high-latitude mixed-phase clouds.

This work documents version two of the Department of Energy’s Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM). E3SM version 2 (E3SMv2) is a significant evolution from its predecessor E3SMv1, resulting in a model that is nearly twice as fast and with a simulated climate that is improved in many metrics. We describe the physical climate model in its lower horizontal resolution configuration consisting of 110 km atmosphere, 165 km land, 0.5° river routing model, and an ocean and sea ice with mesh spacing varying between 60 km in the mid-latitudes and 30 km at the equator and poles. The model performance is evaluated by means of a standard set of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) Diagnosis, Evaluation, and Characterization of Klima (DECK) simulations augmented with historical simulations as well as simulations to evaluate impacts of different forcing agents. The simulated climate is generally realistic, with notable improvements in clouds and precipitation compared to E3SMv1. E3SMv1 suffered from an excessively high equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) of 5.3 K. In E3SMv2, ECS is reduced to 4.0 K which is now within the plausible range based on a recent World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) assessment. However, E3SMv2 significantly underestimates the global mean surface temperature in the second half of the historical record. An analysis of single-forcing simulations indicates that correcting the historical temperature bias would require a substantial reduction in the magnitude of the aerosol-related forcing.

An evaluation of three climate models is conducted using in situ airborne observations from the Southern Ocean Clouds, Radiation, Aerosol Transport Experimental Study (SOCRATES) campaign. The evaluation targets cloud phases, microphysical properties, thermodynamic conditions, and aerosol indirect effects at -40°C – 0°C. For cloud phase frequency distribution, the Community Atmosphere Model version 6 (CAM6) shows the most similar result to the observations, which allows more liquid-containing clouds below -10°C compared with its predecessor – CAM5. The Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) underestimates (overestimates) ice phase frequencies below (above) -20°C. Compared with 580-second averaged observations (i.e., 100 km horizontal scale), CAM6 and E3SM overestimate (underestimate) liquid (ice) water content (i.e., LWC and IWC), leading to lower a glaciation ratio when ice and liquid coexist. Thermodynamic conditions, specifically relative humidity (RH), is likely a key factor contributing to model cloud occurrence and cloud phase biases. Simulated in-cloud RH shows higher minimum values than observations, possibly restricting ice growth during sedimentation. As number concentrations of larger and smaller aerosols (> 500 nm and > 100 nm) increase, observations show increases in glaciation ratio, cloud fraction, LWC and liquid number concentration (Nliq) at -18°C to 0°C, and IWC and ice number concentration (Nice) at -35°C to 0°C. CAM6 and E3SM show slight increases of LWC and Nliq, and E3SM shows small increases of Nice. These results indicate that models underestimate aerosol indirect effects on ice and mixed phase clouds over the Southern Ocean.

This poster presents immersion freezing efficiencies of ambient particles collected from different latitudes between 79 °N and 75 °S. We collected particles using aerosol impactors at five different geographic locations, including i) the Atlantic sector of the Arctic, ii) an urban area in Europe, iii) a rural location in the U.S., iv) a mid-latitude agricultural site in the U.S., and v) the Antarctica peninsula area around Weddell Sea, representing unique particle episodes and atmospheric conditions. Then, we used an offline droplet-freezing assay instrument to measure fine-temperature-resolved ice-nucleating particle (INP) concentrations at T > -25 °C (with a detection capability of >0.0001 per L of air) for each region. Our preliminary results show INP concentrations in polar regions are - as expected - lower compared to mid-latitudes. Low concentrations of high-latitude INPs have been reported in other previous studies (e.g., Bigg et al., 2001; Rogers, 1996; Fountain and Ohtake, 1985; Mason et al., 2015; Ardon-Dryer and Levin, 2014; Belosi and Santachiara, 2014). Another important observation is the high variability of mid-latitude INP concentrations. A difference in the aerosol episode and properties may be key for such a high variability in the mid-latitude region. The composition of INPs varies, but it typically includes dust-related minerals, pollution aerosol, biogenic nuclei and marine microlayers. It is therefore important to comprehensively study realistic representation of both INP concentration and composition (ultimately for model parameterization) and their relevance to the aerosol-cloud interactions with a better temporal resolution under different atmospheric states and a wider spatial coverage of INP sampling sites (see Fig. 1). References: Ardon-Dryer, K. and Levin, Z.: Atmos. Chem. Phys., 14, 5217-5231, 2014. Belosi, F., and Santachiara, G.: Atmos. Res., 145–146, 105–111, 2014. Bigg, E. K.: Tellus B, 48, 223–233, 1996. Fountain, A. G., and Ohtake, T.: 1985: Climate Appl. Meteor., 24, 377–382, 1985. Mason, R. H. et al.: Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 1637–1651, 2016. Rogers, D. C. et al.: J. Atmos. Oceanic Technol., 18, 725–741, 2001.

This study investigates the impacts of wildfire aerosols (primary organic carbon, black carbon and sulfate) on the Northern hemispheric boreal winter climate. We found that wildfire aerosols emitted from equatorial Africa result in two mid-high latitude Rossby wave trains. One is from subtropical Atlantic propagating northward across Europe to Siberia, and the other one propagates eastward from Mid-East across Asia to Northwest Pacific. The maximum positive height anomaly locates in Europe, concurrent with a greater-than-2K surface warming. These Rossby wave trains are excited by the atmospheric heating in equatorial Africa and propagate into extratropics with the help of the westerly jet. Through the heat budget analysis, the source of the Rossby wave is primarily due to the solar absorption of black carbon in Africa. The present study emphasize that aerosols especial the absorbing aerosols would have profound thermo-dynamic effects on remote regions and need more attentions.

Significant changes are found in the modeled phase partitioning of Arctic mixed-phase clouds in the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) Atmosphere Model version 1 (EAMv1) compared to its predecessor, the Community Atmosphere Model version 5 (CAM5). In this study, we aim to understand how the changes in modeled mixed-phase cloud properties are attributed to the updates made in the EAMv1 physical parameterizations. Impacts of the Classical Nucleation Theory (CNT) ice nucleation scheme, the Cloud Layer Unified By Binormals (CLUBB) parameterization, and updated Morrison and Gettelman microphysical scheme (MG2) are examined. Sensitivity experiments using the short-term hindcast approach are performed to isolate the impact of these new features on simulated mixed-phase clouds. Results are compared to the DOE’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Mixed-Phase Arctic Cloud Experiment (M-PACE) observations. We find that mixed-phase clouds simulated in EAMv1 are overly dominated by supercooled liquid and cloud ice water is substantially underestimated. The individual change of physical parameterizations is found to decrease cloud ice water mass mixing ratio in EAMv1 simulated single-layer mixed-phase clouds. A budget analysis of detailed cloud microphysical processes suggests that the lack of ice particles that participate in the mass growth processes strongly inhibits the mass mixing ratio of cloud ice. The insufficient heterogeneous ice nucleation at temperatures warmer than -15C in CNT and the negligible ice processes in CLUBB are primarily responsible for the significant underestimation of cloud ice water content in the Arctic single-layer mixed-phase clouds.

14 15 Key Points: 16 (1) E3SMv1 captures spatial and temporal variability in the observed dust aerosol optical 17 depth, but underestimates long-range transport. 18 (2) The net direct radiative effect of dust simulated by E3SMv1 is-0.42 Wm-2 with a smaller 19 longwave warming than other recent studies. 20 (3) In addition to emission, dry removal of dust are highly sensitive to the increase of 21 horizontal or vertical model resolution. 22 23 24