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https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-1868
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-1868
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
06 May 2025
| 06 May 2025
Status: this preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP).
Prescribing the aerosol effective radiative forcing in the Simple Cloud-Resolving E3SM Atmosphere Model v1
Abstract. Aerosol effective radiative forcing critically influences climate projections but remains poorly constrained. Using the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) Simple Cloud-Resolving E3SM Atmosphere Model (SCREAM) v1 configuration, we quantify the forcing due to anthropogenic aerosol changes using a simplified prescribed aerosol scheme (SPA) derived from E3SM v3. Nudged simulations at 3 km and 12 km horizontal grid spacings reveal a more negative aerosol forcing than the reference 100-km E3SM v3 whence the SPA properties are derived. The resulting globally averaged aerosol forcing signal is largely due to aerosol–cloud interactions and exhibits little overall resolution sensitivity. While the default SPA scheme overestimates cloud droplet dependence on aerosols, parameterization adjustments in the activation process reconcile forcing estimates with the reference model. Our results demonstrate the ability to use a prescribed aerosol scheme to hold aerosol forcing to a desired strength across resolutions.
How to cite. Mahfouz, N., Beydoun, H., Mülmenstädt, J., Keen, N., Varble, A. C., Bertagna, L., Bogenschutz, P., Bradley, A., Christensen, M. W., Clevenger, T. C., Donahue, A., Fast, J., Foucar, J., Golaz, J.-C., Guba, O., Hannah, W., Hillman, B., Jacob, R., Lin, W., Ma, P.-L., Qian, Y., Singh, B., Terai, C., Wang, H., Wu, M., Zhang, K., Gettelman, A., Taylor, M., Leung, L. R., Caldwell, P., and Burrows, S.: Prescribing the aerosol effective radiative forcing in the Simple Cloud-Resolving E3SM Atmosphere Model v1, EGUsphere [preprint], https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-1868, 2025.
Competing interests: At least one of the co-authors is an editor at ACP
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Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA
Hassan Beydoun
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA
Johannes Mülmenstädt
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA
Noel Keen
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA
Adam C. Varble
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA
Luca Bertagna
Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, USA
Peter Bogenschutz
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA
Andrew Bradley
Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, USA
Matthew W. Christensen
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA
T. Conrad Clevenger
Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, USA
Aaron Donahue
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA
Jerome Fast
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA
James Foucar
Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, USA
Jean-Christophe Golaz
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA
Oksana Guba
Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, USA
Walter Hannah
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA
Benjamin Hillman
Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, USA
Robert Jacob
Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL, USA
Wuyin Lin
Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY, USA
Po-Lun Ma
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA
Yun Qian
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA
Balwinder Singh
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA
Christopher Terai
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA
Hailong Wang
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA
Mingxuan Wu
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA
Kai Zhang
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA
Andrew Gettelman
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA
Mark Taylor
Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, USA
L. Ruby Leung
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA
Peter Caldwell
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA
Susannah Burrows
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA
Short summary
Our study assesses the aerosol effective radiative forcing in a global cloud-resolving atmosphere model at ultra-high resolution. We demonstrate that global ERFaer signal can be robustly reproduced across resolutions when aerosol activation processes are carefully parameterized. Further, we argue that simplified prescribed aerosol schemes will open the door for further process/mechanism studies under controlled conditions.
Our study assesses the aerosol effective radiative forcing in a global cloud-resolving...