Evaluating simplified chemical mechanisms within present-day simulations of the Community Earth System Model version 1.2 with CAM4 (CESM1.2 CAM-chem): MOZART-4 vs. Reduced Hydrocarbon vs. Super-Fast chemistry
Author(s)
Tilmes, Simone; Emmons, Louisa; Lamarque, Jean-François; Cameron-Smith, Philip; Brown-Steiner, Benjamin E; Selin, Noelle E; Prinn, Ronald G; ... Show more Show less
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While state-of-the-art complex chemical mechanisms expand our understanding of atmospheric chemistry, their sheer size and computational requirements often limit simulations to short lengths or ensembles to only a few members. Here we present and compare three 25-year present-day offline simulations with chemical mechanisms of different levels of complexity using the Community Earth System Model (CESM) Version 1.2 CAM-chem (CAM4): the Model for Ozone and Related Chemical Tracers, version 4 (MOZART-4) mechanism, the Reduced Hydrocarbon mechanism, and the Super-Fast mechanism. We show that, for most regions and time periods, differences in simulated ozone chemistry between these three mechanisms are smaller than the model-observation differences themselves. The MOZART-4 mechanism and the Reduced Hydrocarbon are in close agreement in their representation of ozone throughout the troposphere during all time periods (annual, seasonal, and diurnal). While the Super-Fast mechanism tends to have higher simulated ozone variability and differs from the MOZART-4 mechanism over regions of high biogenic emissions, it is surprisingly capable of simulating ozone adequately given its simplicity. We explore the trade-offs between chemical mechanism complexity and computational cost by identifying regions where the simpler mechanisms are comparable to the MOZART-4 mechanism and regions where they are not. The Super-Fast mechanism is 3 times as fast as the MOZART-4 mechanism, which allows for longer simulations or ensembles with more members that may not be feasible with the MOZART-4 mechanism given limited computational resources.
Date issued
2018-10Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Global Change Science; Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences; Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Institute for Data, Systems, and Society; Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Joint Program on the Science & Policy of Global ChangeJournal
Geoscientific Model Development
Publisher
Copernicus GmbH
Citation
Brown-Steiner, Benjamin et al. “Evaluating Simplified Chemical Mechanisms Within Present-Day Simulations of the Community Earth System Model Version 1.2 with CAM4 (CESM1.2 CAM-Chem): MOZART-4 Vs. Reduced Hydrocarbon Vs. Super-Fast Chemistry.” Geoscientific Model Development 11, 10 (October 2018): 4155–4174 © 2018 Author(s)
Version: Final published version
ISSN
1991-9603
1991-959X