ALBERT

Description: Intra-seasonal variability of smoke aerosol optical depth (AOD) and downwelling solar irradiance at the surface during the 2002 biomass burning season in South America was modeled using the Coupled Chemistry-Aerosol-Tracers Transport model with the Brazilian developments on the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (CCATT-BRAMS). Measurements of total and fine mode fraction (FMF) AOD from the AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET) and solar irradiance at the surface from the Solar Radiation Network (SolRad-NET) were used to evaluate model results. In general, the major features associated with AOD evolution over the southern part of the Amazon basin and cerrado ecosystem are captured by the model. The main discrepancies were found for high aerosol loading events. In the northeastern portion of the Amazon basin the model systematically underestimated total AOD, as expected, since smoke contribution is not dominant as it is in the southern portion and emissions other than smoke were not considered in the simulation. Better agreement was obtained comparing the model results with observed FMF AOD, which pointed out the relevance of coarse mode aerosol emission in that region. Likewise, major discrepancies over cerrado during high AOD events were found to be associated with coarse mode aerosol omission in our model. The issue of high aerosol loading events in the southern part of the Amazon was related to difficulties in predicting the smoke AOD field, which was discussed in the context of emissions shortcomings. The Cuiabá cerrado site was the only one where the highest quality AERONET data were unavailable for both total and FMF AOD. Thus, lower quality data were used. Root-mean-square error (RMSE) between the model and observed FMF AOD decreased from 0.34 to 0.19 when extreme AOD events (FMF AOD550 nm ≥ 1.0) and Cuiabá were excluded from the analysis. Downward surface solar irradiance comparisons also followed similar trends when extreme AOD were excluded. This highlights the need to improve modelling of the regional smoke plume in order to enhance the accuracy of the radiative energy budget. An aerosol optical model based on the mean intensive properties of smoke from the southern part of the Amazon basin produced a radiative flux perturbation efficiency (RFPE) of −158 Wm−2/AOD550 nm at noon. This value falls between −154 Wm−2/AOD550 nm and −187 Wm−2/AOD550 nm, the range obtained when spatially varying optical models were considered. The 24 h average surface radiative flux perturbation over the biomass burning season varied from −55 Wm−2 close to smoke sources in the southern part of the Amazon basin and cerrado to −10 Wm−2 in remote regions of the southeast Brazilian coast.

Description: Coupled Chemistry Aerosol-Tracer Transport model to the Brazilian developments on the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (CCATT-BRAMS, version 4.5) is an on-line regional chemical transport model designed for local and regional studies of atmospheric chemistry from the surface to the lower stratosphere suitable both for operational and research purposes. It includes gaseous/aqueous chemistry, photochemistry, scavenging and dry deposition. The CCATT-BRAMS model takes advantage of BRAMS-specific development for the tropics/subtropics as well as the recent availability of preprocessing tools for chemical mechanisms and fast codes for photolysis rates. BRAMS includes state-of-the-art physical parameterizations and dynamic formulations to simulate atmospheric circulations down to the meter. This on-line coupling of meteorology and chemistry allows the system to be used for simultaneous weather and chemical composition forecasts as well as potential feedback between the two. The entire system is made of three preprocessing software tools for user-defined chemical mechanisms, aerosol and trace gas emissions fields and the interpolation of initial and boundary conditions for meteorology and chemistry. In this paper, the model description is provided along with the evaluations performed by using observational data obtained from ground-based stations, instruments aboard aircrafts and retrieval from space remote sensing. The evaluation accounts for model applications at different scales from megacities and the Amazon Basin up to the intercontinental region of the Southern Hemisphere.

Description: This article presents the coupling of the JULES surface model to the CCATT-BRAMS atmospheric chemistry model. This new numerical system is denominated JULES-CCATT-BRAMS. We demonstrate the performance of this new model system in relation to several meteorological variables and the CO2 mixing ratio over a large part of South America, focusing on the Amazon basin. The evaluation was conducted for two time periods, the wet (March) and dry (September) seasons of 2010. The model errors were calculated in relation to meteorological observations at conventional stations in airports and automatic stations. In addition, CO2 mixing ratios in the first model level were compared with meteorological tower measurements and vertical CO2 profiles were compared with observations obtained with airborne instruments. The results of this study show that the JULES-CCATT-BRAMS modeling system provided a significant gain in performance for the considered atmospheric fields relative to those simulated by the LEAF (version 3) surface model originally employed by CCATT-BRAMS. In addition, the new system significantly increases the ability to simulate processes involving air–surface interactions, due to the ability of JULES to simulate photosynthesis, respiration and dynamic vegetation, among other processes. We also discuss a wide range of numerical studies involving coupled atmospheric, land surface and chemistry processes that could be done with the system introduced here. Thus, this work presents to the scientific community a free modeling tool, with good performance in comparison with observational data and reanalysis model data, at least for the region and time period discussed here. Therefore, in principle, this model is able to produce atmospheric hindcast/forecast simulations at different spatial resolutions for any time period and any region of the globe.

Description: The Coupled Chemistry Aerosol-Tracer Transport model to the Brazilian developments on the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (CCATT–BRAMS, version 4.5) is an online regional chemical transport model designed for local and regional studies of atmospheric chemistry from surface to the lower stratosphere suitable both for operational and research purposes. It includes gaseous/aqueous chemistry, photochemistry, scavenging and dry deposition. The CCATT–BRAMS model takes advantages of the BRAMS specific development for the tropics/subtropics and of the recent availability of preprocessing tools for chemical mechanisms and of fast codes for photolysis rates. BRAMS includes state-of-the-art physical parameterizations and dynamic formulations to simulate atmospheric circulations of scales down to meters. The online coupling between meteorology and chemistry allows the system to be used for simultaneous atmospheric weather and chemical composition forecasts as well as potential feedbacks between them. The entire system comprises three preprocessing software tools for chemical mechanism (which are user defined), aerosol and trace gases emission fields and atmospheric and chemistry fields for initial and boundary conditions. In this paper, the model description is provided along evaluations performed using observational data obtained from ground-based stations, instruments aboard of aircrafts and retrieval from space remote sensing. The evaluation takes into account model application on different scales from megacities and Amazon Basin up to intercontinental region of the Southern Hemisphere.

Description: This article presents the development of a new numerical system denominated JULES-CCATT-BRAMS, which resulted from the coupling of the JULES surface model to the CCATT-BRAMS atmospheric chemistry model. The performance of this system in relation to several meteorological variables (wind speed at 10 m, air temperature at 2 m, dew point temperature at 2 m, pressure reduced to mean sea level and 6 h accumulated precipitation) and the CO2 concentration above an extensive area of South America is also presented, focusing on the Amazon basin. The evaluations were conducted for two periods, the wet (March) and dry (September) seasons of 2010. The statistics used to perform the evaluation included bias (BIAS) and root mean squared error (RMSE). The errors were calculated in relation to observations at conventional stations in airports and automatic stations. In addition, CO2 concentrations in the first model level were compared with meteorological tower measurements and vertical CO2 profiles were compared with aircraft data. The results of this study show that the JULES model coupled to CCATT-BRAMS provided a significant gain in performance in the evaluated atmospheric fields relative to those simulated by the LEAF (version 3) surface model originally utilized by CCATT-BRAMS. Simulations of CO2 concentrations in Amazonia and a comparison with observations are also discussed and show that the system presents a gain in performance relative to previous studies. Finally, we discuss a wide range of numerical studies integrating coupled atmospheric, land surface and chemistry processes that could be produced with the system described here. Therefore, this work presents to the scientific community a free tool, with good performance in relation to the observed data and re-analyses, able to produce atmospheric simulations/forecasts at different resolutions, for any period of time and in any region of the globe.