First light for the modal aerosol scheme in IFS-COMPO CY49R1

This modal aerosol scheme has been implemented into IFS-COMPO CY49R1.1 by a collaboration between KNMI and FMI in WP3. This refers to an experimental set of branches (ifs-source, ifs-scripts, ifs-test), which, together, can be used to simulate aerosol microphysics aspects in the atmosphere using the M7 scheme. The implementation also contains parameterizations for emissions (with particular emphasis on the treatment of particle number emissions), dry and wet deposition and sedimentation, following Tegen et al., (2019).  A multi-day test experiment has been concluded successfully. Animation at right shows the sulphate wet Aitken mode, one of the modes which describe the size distribution of the aerosol. Aitken mode is the aerosol size in between nucleation (smallest) and coarse (largest) mode.

This marks an important step towards the preparation of the M7 modal scheme for future use in the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service. It has the potential to describe aerosol evolution, cloud interaction, as well as its radiative impacts better than with the current model approach.