Why do models perform differently on particulate matter over East Asia? A multi-model intercomparison study for MICS-Asia III

Tan, Jiani; Fu, Joshua S.; Carmichael, Gregory R.; Itahashi, Syuichi; Tao, Zhining; Huang, Kan; Dong, Xinyi; Yamaji, Kazuyo; Nagashima, Tatsuya; Wang, Xuemei; Liu, Yiming; Lee, Hyo-Jung; Lin, Chuan-Yao; Ge, Baozhu; Kajino, Mizuo; Zhu, Jia; Zhang, Meigen; Liao, Hong; Wang, Zifa

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-7393-2020

Articles | Volume 20, issue 12

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-7393-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Regional assessment of air pollution and climate change over...

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-7393-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 20, issue 12

Research article

|

25 Jun 2020

Research article |

| 25 Jun 2020

Why do models perform differently on particulate matter over East Asia? A multi-model intercomparison study for MICS-Asia III

Jiani Tan, Joshua S. Fu, Gregory R. Carmichael, Syuichi Itahashi, Zhining Tao, Kan Huang, Xinyi Dong, Kazuyo Yamaji, Tatsuya Nagashima, Xuemei Wang, Yiming Liu, Hyo-Jung Lee, Chuan-Yao Lin, Baozhu Ge, Mizuo Kajino, Jia Zhu, Meigen Zhang, Hong Liao, and Zifa Wang

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Final revised paper (published on 25 Jun 2020)
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Preprint (discussion started on 22 Jul 2019)
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Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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RC1: 'Review of “Why models perform differently on particulate matter over East Asia? – A multi-model intercomparison study for MICS-Asia III” by Tan et al.', Anonymous Referee #2, 30 Oct 2019
- AC1: 'Respond to reviewer #2 comments', Joshua Fu, 15 Feb 2020
RC2: 'Interactive comment on “Why models perform differently on particulate matter over East Asia? – A multi-model intercomparison study for MICS-Asia III” by Jiani Tan et al.', Anonymous Referee #3, 21 Nov 2019
- AC2: 'Respond to reviewer #3 comments', Joshua Fu, 15 Feb 2020

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Joshua Fu on behalf of the Authors (17 Feb 2020) Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (25 Feb 2020) by Alma Hodzic

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (17 Mar 2020)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Review of “Why models perform differently on particulate matter over East Asia? – A multi-model intercomparison study for MICS-Asia III” by Tan et al.

I thank the authors for revising their manuscript in response to my comments. However, the authors did not address all the comments adequately as explained below.

For example, in response to my comment on “Why would natural emissions affect BC concentrations and CO loading?”, the authors state that same anthropogenic and natural emissions were used for each modeling system. But natural emissions cannot be same as they are calculated online in most of the models and some of the participating models do not even turn on the natural emissions.

I also asked to clarify “why sea-salt emissions were turned off in M7 and M8?”. In their response, the authors say they confirmed that sea-salt emissions were turned off (which was clear in the previous version) but did not give a reason to turn them off. Please clarify.

Uncertainty in Gas-particle conversion is suggested as the main reason for inter-model differences. Are the differences due to differences in tropospheric ozone and thus simulated OH or are the parameterization converting sulfuric acid to sulfate are different?

In addition, I have the following minor comments.

Line 31: Change “one the” to “one of the”

Line 122: Change Sector 2.1 to “Section 2.1”.

Line 154: Should not Japan and Korea classify eastern EA?

Lines 176-188: Can you please provide some quantitative information like by how much SO4 is overestimated and NO3 is underestimated. Same information for other species and AOD.

Lines 389-404: I am puzzled by this discussion. It is not clear to me how lower values of washout ratio lead to large biases in M11. I think showing the spatial distribution of Cdepo will be more useful than showing the washout ratios.

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (17 Mar 2020) by Alma Hodzic

AR by Joshua Fu on behalf of the Authors (22 Mar 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (25 Apr 2020) by Barbara Ervens

AR by Joshua Fu on behalf of the Authors (04 May 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (06 May 2020) by Barbara Ervens

AR by Joshua Fu on behalf of the Authors (18 May 2020) Author's response Manuscript

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Short summary

This study evaluated the performance of 12 chemical transport models from MICS-Asia III for predicting the particulate matter (PM) over East Asia. Four model processes were investigated as the possible reasons for model bias with measurements and the factors causing inconsistent predictions of PM from different models: (1) model inputs, (2) gas–particle conversion, (3) dust emission modules and (4) removal mechanisms (wet and dry depositions). The influence of each process was discussed.