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Development and evaluation of E3SM-MOSAIC: Spatial distributions and radiative effects of nitrate aerosol
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  • Mingxuan Wu,
  • Hailong Wang,
  • Richard C. Easter,
  • Zheng Lu,
  • Xiaohong Liu,
  • Balwinder Singh,
  • Po-Lun Ma,
  • Qi Tang,
  • Rahul A. Zaveri,
  • Ziming Ke,
  • Rudong Zhang,
  • Louisa K. Emmons,
  • Simone Tilmes,
  • Jack E. Dibb,
  • Xue Zheng,
  • Shaocheng Xie,
  • L. Ruby Leung
Mingxuan Wu
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
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Hailong Wang
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Richard C. Easter
Pacifc Northwest National Laboratory
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Zheng Lu
Texas A&M University
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Xiaohong Liu
Texas A&M University
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Balwinder Singh
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (DOE)
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Po-Lun Ma
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (DOE)
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Qi Tang
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (DOE)
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Rahul A. Zaveri
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
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Ziming Ke
Texas A&M University
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Rudong Zhang
Lanzhou University
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Louisa K. Emmons
National Center for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)
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Simone Tilmes
National Center for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)
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Jack E. Dibb
University of New Hampshire
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Xue Zheng
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (DOE)
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Shaocheng Xie
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
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L. Ruby Leung
PNNL
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Abstract

Nitrate aerosol plays an important role in affecting regional air quality as well as Earth’s climate. However, it is not well represented or even neglected in many global climate models. In this study, we couple the Model for Simulating Aerosol Interactions and Chemistry (MOSAIC) module with the four-mode version of the Modal Aerosol Module (MAM4) in DOE’s Energy Exascale Earth System Model version 2 (E3SMv2) to treat nitrate aerosol and its radiative effects. We find that nitrate aerosol simulated by E3SMv2-MAM4-MOSAIC is sensitive to the treatment of gaseous HNO3 transfer to/from interstitial particles related to accommodation coefficients of HNO3HNO3) on dust and non-dust particles. We compare three different treatments of HNO3 transfer: 1) a treatment (MTC_SLOW) that uses a low αHNO3 in the mass transfer coefficient (MTC) calculation; 2) a dust-weighted MTC treatment (MTC_WGT) that uses a high αHNO3 on non-dust particles; and 3) a dust-weighted MTC treatment that also splits coarse mode aerosols into the coarse dust and sea salt sub-modes in MOSAIC (MTC_SPLC). MTC_WGT and MTC_SPLC increase the global annual mean (2005-2014) nitrate burden from 0.096 (MTC_SLOW) to 0.237 and 0.185 Tg N, respectively, mostly in the coarse mode. They also produce stronger nitrate direct radiative forcing (–0.048 and –0.051 W m–2, respectively) and indirect forcing (–0.33 and –0.35 W m–2, respectively) than MTC_SLOW (–0.021 and –0.24 W m–2). All three treatments overestimate nitrate surface concentrations compared with ground-based observations. MTC_WGT and MTC_SPLC improve the vertical profiles of nitrate concentrations against aircraft measurements below 400 hPa.