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The paper presents dynamic cores v.4 and v.5 of the System for Integrated modeLling of Atmospheric coMposition SILAM v.5.5 based on the advection algorithm of Michael Galperin. This advection routine, so far weakly presented in international literature, is non-diffusive, positively defined, stable with regard to Courant number significantly above one, and very efficient computationally. For the first time, we present a rigorous description of its original version, along with several updates that improve its monotonicity and allow applications to long-living species in conditions of complex atmospheric flows. The other extension allows the scheme application to dynamics of aerosol spectra. The scheme is accompanied with the previously developed vertical diffusion algorithm, which encapsulates the dry deposition process as a boundary condition. Connection to chemical transformation modules is outlined, accounting for the specifics of transport scheme. Quality of the advection routine is evaluated using a large set of tests. The original approach has been previously compared with several classic algorithms widely used in operational models. The basic tests were repeated for the updated scheme, along with demanding global 2-D tests recently suggested in literature, which allowed positioning the scheme with regard to sophisticated state-of-the-art approaches. The model performance appeared close to the top of the list with very modest computational costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Persistent high pressure conditions over the European part of Russia during summer 2010 were responsible for an extended period of hot and dry weather, creating favourable conditions for severe wildfires. The chemical transport model SILAM is used to simulate the dispersion of smoke aerosol for this case. Aerosol fields from SILAM are compared to the Monitoring Atmospheric Composition and Climate (MACC) reanalysis. Moreover, the model output is compared to in situ and remote sensing measurements, paying particular attention to the most intense fire period of August 7 to 9, when the plume reached the Baltic countries and Finland. The maximum observed aerosol optical depth was more than 4 at 550 nm during this time. The aerosol distributions from the SILAM run and the MACC reanalysis are subsequently used in meteorological simulations using the Hirlam Aladin Research for Mesoscale Operational Numerical Weather Prediction in Euromed (HARMONIE) model. The modelling results show a significant reduction of the daily average shortwave radiation fluxes at the surface (up to 125 W/m 2 ) and daily average near-surface temperature (up to 4 °C) through the aerosol direct radiative effect. The simulated near-surface temperature and vertical temperature profile agree better with the observations, when the aerosol direct radiative effect is considered in the meteorological simulation. The boundary layer is more stably stratified, creating poorer dispersion conditions for the smoke. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]