Aerosols and Chemistry

Aerosols

CCAM supports both prescribed aerosol and prognostic aerosol models.  Prescribed aerosols was typically used for CMIP3 experiments, whereas prognostic aerosols are used for CMIP5 experiments.  A description of the parameterisation can be found at rotstayn2002_aerosols.pdf and rotstayn2011_aerosols.pdf.  Note that the model now also supports a prognostic sea-salt parameterisation.

The (single moment) prognostic aerosols (iaero = 2 or -2) is based on the CSIRO Mk3.6 aerosol scheme, but modified to couple to the CCAM physical parameterisations.  The model includes direct effects when coupled to the SEA-ESF radiation scheme and indirect effects when coupled to the LDR cloud microphysics.  The main aerosol species are

  • sulphur cycle – DMS, SO2, SO4
  • Carbonaceous aerosols – Hydrophobic organic carbon, hydrophilic organic carbon, hydrophobic black carbon and hydrophilic black carbon
  • Dust – For bins of dust corresponding to different particle sizes
  • Sea salt – jet and film modes

Carbon cycle

CCAM supports a terrestrial carbon cycle model CASA-CNP. This model requires the CABLE land-surface model to function. When activated, CASA-CNP can be used to predict the model Leaf Area Index (LAI) based on the carbon cycle.