The September 2010 PIESA/Aerosol Experiments

I M P O R T A N T

This page is currently under construction.

Introduction

This document is a summary of the GMAO Recovery Act Projects subtask Progress towards an Integrated Earth System Analysis.

GMAO civil servants and contractor staff, and in collaboration with the Atmospheric Chemistry and Dynamics Branch at NASA/GSFC, conducted simulations of aerosol distributions in the atmosphere using the GEOS-5 modeling and data assimilation system coupled with the GOCART aerosol module. Realistic transport of simulated aerosols was achieved by ingesting Modern Era Retrospective-analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) meteorological fields (referred to as 'replay' technique).

System Configuration

The base system that was used to conduct multi-year (2003-2009) replay runs included GOCART aerosols (organic carbon, black carbon, sulfates, sea-salt, mineral dust), and global carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO2) tracers. Sources of aerosols and chemical species were represented by time varying emission from anthropogenic, biogenic, biomass burning, volcanic, soil dust, ocean sources and oxidant fields. Detailed description of the GOCART aerosols and chemistry configuration can be found in the GEOS-5 GOCART Configuration for PIESA document.

The QFED Emissions

(Overview of the formulation, including results of tuning exercise)

Results

Comparison to MISR

When Cynthia/Pete returns, include their MODIS, AERONET comparisons

Data Availability

(Give URL for FTP and OPeNDAP, Download tool)

Acknowledgments

(Thank our sponsors, including ARRA)