SALSA – a Sectional Aerosol module for Large Scale Applications

[摘要] The sectional aerosol module SALSA is introduced.The model has been designed to be implemented in largescale climate models, which require both accuracy and computationalefficiency. We have used multiple methods to reduce the computationalburden of different aerosol processes to optimize the modelperformance without losing physical features relevant to problematics ofclimate importance. The optimizations include limiting the chemical compoundsand physical processes available in different size sections of aerosol particles; division of the size distribution into size sections using size sections of variable width depending on the sensitivity of microphysical processing to the particles sizes; the total amount of size sectionsto describe the size distribution is kept to the minimum; furthermore, onlythe relevant microphysical processes affecting each size section arecalculated. The ability of the module to describe differentmicrophysical processes was evaluated against explicit microphysicalmodels and several microphysical models used in air qualitymodels. The results from the current module show good consistency whencompared to more explicit models. Also, the module was used to simulate anew particle formation event typical in highly polluted conditionswith comparable results to more explicitmodel setup.

[学科分类] 大气科学