Limitations of assuming internal mixing between different aerosol species: a case study with sulfate geoengineering simulations

Visioni, Daniele; Tilmes, Simone; Bardeen, Charles; Mills, Michael; MacMartin, Douglas G.; Kravitz, Ben; Richter, Jadwiga H.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-1739-2022

Articles | Volume 22, issue 3

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-1739-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Resolving uncertainties in solar geoengineering through multi-model...

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-1739-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 22, issue 3

Research article

|

04 Feb 2022

Research article |

| 04 Feb 2022

Limitations of assuming internal mixing between different aerosol species: a case study with sulfate geoengineering simulations

Daniele Visioni, Simone Tilmes, Charles Bardeen, Michael Mills, Douglas G. MacMartin, Ben Kravitz, and Jadwiga H. Richter

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-1739-2022-supplement

Data sets

Stratospheric Aerosol Geoengineering Large Ensemble Project - GLENS Simone Tilmes, Jadwiga H. Richter, Michael Mills, Ben Kravitz, and Douglas G. MacMartin https://doi.org/10.5065/D6JH3JXX

Data from: Is Turning Down the Sun a Good Proxy for Stratospheric Sulfate Geoengineering? Daniele Visioni and Douglas G. MacMartin https://doi.org/10.7298/z8c9-3p43

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Short summary

Aerosols are simulated in a simplified way in climate models: in the model analyzed here, they are represented in every grid as described by three simple logarithmic distributions, mixing all different species together. The size can evolve when new particles are formed, particles merge together to create a larger one or particles are deposited to the surface. This approximation normally works fairly well. Here we show however that when large amounts of sulfate are simulated, there are problems.