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This study reports on the climatological acetone distribution and seasonal variations in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere of the northern midlatitudes, derived from observations by the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment Fourier Transform Spectrometer (ACE-FTS) onboard SCISAT. The acetone profiles retrieved from 5 to ∼20 km cover the period from January 2004 to September 2010. The 1 σ statistical fitting errors are typically ∼5–20% within the upper troposphere (UT), increasing in the lower stratosphere (LS) with decreasing acetone. The systematic errors range between 15% and 20%. The largest UT acetone mixing ratios (∼1200 ppt on average in July over Siberia) are observed in summer in the northern mid- and high latitudes. Mixing ratios are larger over continental regions than over the ocean. Comparisons with airborne measurements available in the literature point toward a possible underestimation in acetone retrieved from ACE-FTS. The largest differences occur primarily in winter and for the background values. This underestimation is attributed to the complexity of the spectral region used for the retrieval. The annual cycle of acetone for the 30–70°N midlatitude band shows a maximum during summer, reflecting the annual cycle of the primary terrestrial biogenic source of acetone. By comparison with ACE-FTS, the LMDz-INCA global climate-chemistry model systematically overestimates acetone mixing ratios lower than 400 ppt. This overestimation is thus generalized for the lower stratosphere, the Tropics and beyond 70°N for the upper troposphere. In contrast, in the upper troposphere of the 30–70°N region, where the acetone levels are the highest (>450 ppt on average), the model-observation differences are in the range of the observation uncertainty. However, in this region, the model fails to capture the annual cycle of acetone, culminating in July. A seasonal cycle can only be obtained by considering high biogenic emissions but this cycle is shifted toward autumn, likely indicating an underestimation of the chemical destruction in the northern high latitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we investigate the benefit for European ozone simulation of using day-to-day varying chemical boundary conditions produced by a global chemical weather forecast platform instead of climatological monthly means at the frontiers of a regional model. We performed two simulations over Europe using the regional (0.5×0.5°) CHIMERE CTM forced by global scale simulations based on the LMDz-INCA CTM. For summer 2005, ozone differences exceeding 20ppb can be punctually found between these two simulations in the borders of the domain. The mean of the differences ranges between 0 and 3ppb beyond 15° of the frontiers of the regional model. Correlations with ground-based ozone measurements at more than 400 stations are slightly increased by the use of daily boundary conditions. The simulation of the temporal variability is significantly enhanced in particular for the daily means and daily maxima. As expected, the gain is higher at the borders of the regional domain. The change of percentile distribution shows that the net impact of high temporal resolution boundary conditions is not of major concern for surface ozone peaks which are mainly due to local photochemistry. The use of daily boundary conditions is however necessary to correctly simulate concentrations in the 20–35ppb range which are of crucial interest for human and vegetation exposure effects. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A new version of the general circulation model CNRM-CM has been developed jointly by CNRM-GAME (Centre National de Recherches Météorologiques-Groupe d'études de l'Atmosphère Météorologique) and Cerfacs (Centre Européen de Recherche et de Formation Avancée) in order to contribute to phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). The purpose of the study is to describe its main features and to provide a preliminary assessment of its mean climatology. CNRM-CM5.1 includes the atmospheric model ARPEGE-Climat (v5.2), the ocean model NEMO (v3.2), the land surface scheme ISBA and the sea ice model GELATO (v5) coupled through the OASIS (v3) system. The main improvements since CMIP3 are the following. Horizontal resolution has been increased both in the atmosphere (from 2.8° to 1.4°) and in the ocean (from 2° to 1°). The dynamical core of the atmospheric component has been revised. A new radiation scheme has been introduced and the treatments of tropospheric and stratospheric aerosols have been improved. Particular care has been devoted to ensure mass/water conservation in the atmospheric component. The land surface scheme ISBA has been externalised from the atmospheric model through the SURFEX platform and includes new developments such as a parameterization of sub-grid hydrology, a new freezing scheme and a new bulk parameterisation for ocean surface fluxes. The ocean model is based on the state-of-the-art version of NEMO, which has greatly progressed since the OPA8.0 version used in the CMIP3 version of CNRM-CM. Finally, the coupling between the different components through OASIS has also received a particular attention to avoid energy loss and spurious drifts. These developments generally lead to a more realistic representation of the mean recent climate and to a reduction of drifts in a preindustrial integration. The large-scale dynamics is generally improved both in the atmosphere and in the ocean, and the bias in mean surface temperature is clearly reduced. However, some flaws remain such as significant precipitation and radiative biases in many regions, or a pronounced drift in three dimensional salinity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a study which aims at analyzing four-dimensional (4D) climatology datasets of aerosol optical depth (AOD) distributed over the Mediterranean basin. It describes the methodology of the study, in which eight different AOD products derived by satellite are used and shows differences in dust aerosols and other marine and continental aerosols.

Abstract: In this paper, we examine the extent to which an ensemble generated from a single air quality model correctly represents the global uncertainty of ozone simulations with a regional scale chemistry-transport model and whether it is suitable for ozone data assimilation. An ensemble of 30 members is constructed from a reference simulation in which the model parameters that are the most uncertain for determining ozone concentrations are randomly perturbed. Comparisons of the simulated ensemble using the model CHIMERE with observations are examined over the summer season both at the surface and higher in the troposphere. Although the ensemble overestimates vertical and horizontal correlation between errors, the average model error is well represented both at the surface and in the vertical dimension (after an adjustment for the latter). A variability of about 7–8ppb is found. The results found in this study with respect to tropospheric ozone model errors and error correlation lengths both from ensemble simulations and model to observation comparisons are of particular interest for data assimilation when constructing model error covariance matrices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The year 2000 radiative forcing (RF) due to changes in O3 and CH4 (and the CH4-induced stratospheric water vapour) as a result of emissions of short-lived gases (oxides of nitrogen (NOx), carbon monoxide and non-methane hydrocarbons) from three transport sectors (ROAD, maritime SHIPping and AIRcraft) are calculated using results from five global atmospheric chemistry models. Using results from these models plus other published data, we quantify the uncertainties. The RF due to short-term O3 changes (i.e. as an immediate response to the emissions without allowing for the long-term CH4 changes) is positive and highest for ROAD transport (31 mW m−2) compared to SHIP (24 mW m−2) and AIR (17 mW m−2) sectors in four of the models. All five models calculate negative RF from the CH4 perturbations, with a larger impact from the SHIP sector than for ROAD and AIR. The net RF of O3 and CH4 combined (i.e. including the impact of CH4 on ozone and stratospheric water vapour) is positive for ROAD (+16(±13) (one standard deviation) mW m−2) and AIR (+6(±5) mW m−2) traffic sectors and is negative for SHIP (−18(±10) mW m−2) sector in all five models. Global Warming Potentials (GWP) and Global Temperature change Potentials (GTP) are presented for AIR NOx emissions; there is a wide spread in the results from the 5 chemistry models, and it is shown that differences in the methane response relative to the O3 response drive much of the spread. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]