Online Inclusion of Chemical Suites with Different Levels of Complexity in Two Global Modeling Systems and Comparison to Observations

The global Flow-following finite-volume Icosahedra Model (FIM), which was developed in the Global Systems Division of NOAA/ESRL and the Finite-Volume cubed-sphere dynamical core (FV3) developed by GFDL, have been coupled online with aerosol and gas-phase chemistry schemes (FIM-Chem and FV3-Chem). Within the aerosol and chemistry modules, the models handle wet and dry deposition, chemical reactions, aerosol direct and semi-direct effect, anthropogenic emissions, biogenic emissions, biomass burning, dust and sea-salt emissions. They are able to provide chemical weather predictions at various spatial resolutions and with different levels of complexity. Currently, three different chemical schemes have been coupled with the FIM model. The simplest aerosol modules are from the GOCART model with its simplified parameterization of sulfur/sulfate chemistry. The photochemical gas-phase mechanism RACM was included to determine the impact of additional complexity on the aerosol and gas simulations. Finally, a more sophisticated aerosol scheme that includes secondary organic aerosols (SOA) based on the VBS approach was implemented. Model performance of FIM and FV3 will be compared to Atom-1 observations, AERONET data as well as data from the 2012 South American Biomass Burning Analysis (SAMBBA) campaign.