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Cloud-Aerosol-Radiation (CAR) ensemble monitoring system: Overall accuracy and efficiency

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doi: 10.1007/s00376-012-2171-z

  • The Cloud-Aerosol-Radiation (CAR) ensemble modeling system has recently been built to better understand cloud/aerosol/radiation processes and determine the uncertainties caused by different treatments of cloud/aerosol/radiation in climate models. The CAR system comprises a large scheme collection of cloud, aerosol, and radiation processes available in the literature, including those commonly used by the world's leading GCMs. In this study, detailed analyses of the overall accuracy and efficiency of the CAR system were performed. Despite the different observations used, the overall accuracies of the CAR ensemble means were found to be very good for both shortwave (SW) and longwave (LW) radiation calculations. Taking the percentage errors for July 2004 compared to ISCCP (International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project) data over (60N,60S as an example, even among the 448 CAR members selected here, those errors of the CAR ensemble means were only about -0.67% (-0.6 Wm-2) and -0.82% (-2.0 Wm-2) for SW and LW upward fluxes at the top of atmosphere, and 0.06% (0.1 Wm-2) and -2.12% (-7.8 Wm-2) for SW and LW downward fluxes at the surface, respectively. Furthermore, model SW frequency distributions in July 2004 covered the observational ranges entirely, with ensemble means located in the middle of the ranges. Moreover, it was found that the accuracy of radiative transfer calculations can be significantly enhanced by using certain combinations of cloud schemes for the cloud cover fraction, particle effective size, water path, and optical properties, along with better explicit treatments for unresolved cloud structures.
    摘要: The CloudAerosolRadiation (CAR) ensemble modeling system has recently been built to better understand cloud/aerosol/radiation processes and determine the uncertainties caused by different treatments of cloud/aerosol/radiation in climate models. The CAR system comprises a large scheme collection of cloud, aerosol, and radiation processes available in the literature, including those commonly used by the world's leading GCMs. In this study, detailed analyses of the overall accuracy and efficiency of the CAR system were performed. Despite the different observations used, the overall accuracies of the CAR ensemble means were found to be very good for both shortwave (SW) and longwave (LW) radiation calculations. Taking the percentage errors for July 2004 compared to ISCCP (International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project) data over (60?? 60?? as an example, even among the 448 CAR members selected here, those errors of the CAR ensemble means were only about -0.67% (-0.6 W m-2) and -0.82% (-2.0 W m-2) for SW and LW upward fluxes at the top of atmosphere, and 0.06% (0.1 W m-2) and -2.12% (-7.8 W m-2) for SW and LW downward fluxes at the surface, respectively. Furthermore, model SW frequency distributions in July 2004 covered the observational ranges entirely, with ensemble means located in the middle of the ranges. Moreover, it was found that the accuracy of radiative transfer calculations can be significantly enhanced by using certain combinations of cloud schemes for the cloud cover fraction, particle effective size, water path, and optical properties, along with better explicit treatments for unresolved cloud structures.
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Manuscript received: 30 July 2012
Manuscript revised: 15 November 2012
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Cloud-Aerosol-Radiation (CAR) ensemble monitoring system: Overall accuracy and efficiency

    Corresponding author: Feng ZHANG; 
  • 1. Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, University of Maryland, College Park, MD20740, USA;
  • 2. Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science, University of Maryland, College Park, MD20740, USA;
  • 3. International Center for Climate and Environment Sciences, Institute of Atmospheric Physics,Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029;
  • 4. Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science and Engineering,University of California, Los Angeles, CA90095-1565, USA
Fund Project:  This work was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) (Grant No. 2010CB951901), the U.S. DOE office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER) (Grant No. DE-SC0001683), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 40605026 and 40830103), and the Strategic Priority Research Program-Climate Change: Carbon Budget and Relevant Issues of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. XDA05110101). During 200809, Feng ZHANG was a visiting scholar coming from ICCES/IAP that was included as one of her affiliations. This research used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, which is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231. The ERA-Interim data were obtained from the ECMWF. The SRB data were obtained from the NASA Langley Research Center Atmospheric Sciences Data Center NASA/GEWEX SRB project, and the CERES data were from the NASA Langley Research Center EOSDIS Distributed Active Archive Center.

Abstract: The Cloud-Aerosol-Radiation (CAR) ensemble modeling system has recently been built to better understand cloud/aerosol/radiation processes and determine the uncertainties caused by different treatments of cloud/aerosol/radiation in climate models. The CAR system comprises a large scheme collection of cloud, aerosol, and radiation processes available in the literature, including those commonly used by the world's leading GCMs. In this study, detailed analyses of the overall accuracy and efficiency of the CAR system were performed. Despite the different observations used, the overall accuracies of the CAR ensemble means were found to be very good for both shortwave (SW) and longwave (LW) radiation calculations. Taking the percentage errors for July 2004 compared to ISCCP (International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project) data over (60N,60S as an example, even among the 448 CAR members selected here, those errors of the CAR ensemble means were only about -0.67% (-0.6 Wm-2) and -0.82% (-2.0 Wm-2) for SW and LW upward fluxes at the top of atmosphere, and 0.06% (0.1 Wm-2) and -2.12% (-7.8 Wm-2) for SW and LW downward fluxes at the surface, respectively. Furthermore, model SW frequency distributions in July 2004 covered the observational ranges entirely, with ensemble means located in the middle of the ranges. Moreover, it was found that the accuracy of radiative transfer calculations can be significantly enhanced by using certain combinations of cloud schemes for the cloud cover fraction, particle effective size, water path, and optical properties, along with better explicit treatments for unresolved cloud structures.

摘要: The CloudAerosolRadiation (CAR) ensemble modeling system has recently been built to better understand cloud/aerosol/radiation processes and determine the uncertainties caused by different treatments of cloud/aerosol/radiation in climate models. The CAR system comprises a large scheme collection of cloud, aerosol, and radiation processes available in the literature, including those commonly used by the world's leading GCMs. In this study, detailed analyses of the overall accuracy and efficiency of the CAR system were performed. Despite the different observations used, the overall accuracies of the CAR ensemble means were found to be very good for both shortwave (SW) and longwave (LW) radiation calculations. Taking the percentage errors for July 2004 compared to ISCCP (International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project) data over (60?? 60?? as an example, even among the 448 CAR members selected here, those errors of the CAR ensemble means were only about -0.67% (-0.6 W m-2) and -0.82% (-2.0 W m-2) for SW and LW upward fluxes at the top of atmosphere, and 0.06% (0.1 W m-2) and -2.12% (-7.8 W m-2) for SW and LW downward fluxes at the surface, respectively. Furthermore, model SW frequency distributions in July 2004 covered the observational ranges entirely, with ensemble means located in the middle of the ranges. Moreover, it was found that the accuracy of radiative transfer calculations can be significantly enhanced by using certain combinations of cloud schemes for the cloud cover fraction, particle effective size, water path, and optical properties, along with better explicit treatments for unresolved cloud structures.

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