Aerosol-cloud-radiation interactions and their impact on ECMWF/MACC forecasts

Title
Aerosol-cloud-radiation interactions and their impact on ECMWF/MACC forecasts
Technical memorandum
Date Published
12/2011
Secondary Title
ECMWF Technical Memoranda
Number
660
Author
J.-J. Morcrette
Angela Benedetti
A Ghelli
J. Kaiser
A.P. Tompkins
Publisher
ECMWF
Abstract Prognostic aerosols were experimentally introduced in the ECMWF Integrated Forecasting System (IFS) as part of the GEMS project in 2005. Their representation was refined as part of the MACC project, starting in 2009. Here, the MACC aerosol system is used to explore the impact of different levels of interactions between the aerosols and either the radiation and/or the cloud processes on radiation and precipitation fields, and objective scores. Ten-day forecasts including fully interactive aerosols are compared to forecasts with aerosols specified from the analysis and kept constant thereafter. Whereas the temporal variability of the prognostic aerosols is shown to have strong local effects on surface parameters, the impact on objective scores is much smaller.
URL https://www.ecmwf.int/en/elibrary/75767-aerosol-cloud-radiation-interactions-and-their-impact-ecmwfmacc-forecasts
DOI 10.21957/wjuxaujrn
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