Renewal of aerosol data for ALADIN-HIRLAM radiation parametrizations

Abstract

Radiative transfer calculations in numerical weather prediction (NWP) and climate models require reliable information about aerosol concentration in the atmosphere, combined with data on aerosol optical properties. Replacement of the default input data on vertically integrated climatological aerosol optical depth at 550 nm (AOD550, Tegen climatology) with newer data, based on those available from Copernicus atmosphere monitoring service (CAMS), led to minor differences in the simulated solar irradiance and screen-level temperature in the regional climate model HCLIM-ALARO simulations over Scandinavia and in a clear-sky case study using HARMONIE-AROME NWP model over the Iberian peninsula. In the case study, replacement of the climatological AOD550 with that based on three-dimensional near-real-time aerosol mass mixing ratio resulted in a maximum reduction of the order of 150 W m−2 in the simulated local solar irradiance at noon. Corresponding maximum reduction of the screen-level temperature by almost two degrees was found. The large differences were due to a dust intrusion from Sahara, which is obviously not represented in the average climatological distribution of dust aerosol. Further studies are needed in order to introdude updated aerosol optical properties of all available aerosol types at different wavelengths, make them available for the radiation schemes of ALADIN-HIRLAM and test the impact on the predicted radiation fluxes.