Aerosols Working Group

All users interested in the GEOS-Chem aerosol simulations are encouraged to subscribe to the aerosols email list (click on the link in the contact information section below).

Information on existing projects and future developments in aerosols will be posted here. We encourage user groups to keep their information up-to-date.

Contact information

Aerosols Working Group Co-Chairs	Colette Heald, Jeff Pierce
Aerosols Working Group email list	geos-chem-aerosols@seas.harvard.edu
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Current GEOS-Chem Aerosol Projects, alphabetized by institution (please add yours!)

User Group	Description	Contact Person	Date Added
Beijing/SUNY	Representing GEOS-Chem in the AEROCOM intercomparisons	May Fu Fangqun Yu	28 Jul 2010
CU Boulder	Inverse modeling of inorganic PM2.5 precursors. Direct aerosol radiative forcing.	Daven Henze	19 Apr 2009
CMU	Development of aerosol microphysics. Represented aerosols include size-resolved aerosol numbers and multi-component mass species, including sulfate, sea-salt, OM, EC, and dust. Evaluation against field campaign, e.g. ACE-Asia.	Peter Adams Dan Westervelt	23 Apr 2009
Dalhousie	Optimal estimation satellite retrieval of aerosols	Aaron van Donkelaar	26 Sep 2012
Dalhousie	Global aerosol speciation	Sajeev Philip	26 Sep 2012
Dalhousie	Sensitivity of Asian aerosols to emissions	Shailesh Kharol	26 Sep 2012
Dalhousie/Tsinghua	Historical trends in Asian PM2.5 and emissions	Guannan Geng	26 Sep 2012
Dalhousie	Simulation of the absorbing aerosol index	Farhan Khan	26 Sep 2012
Dalhousie	Diurnal variation in North American aerosol	Andrew Morrow	26 Sep 2012
Dalhousie	Sensitivity of global PM2.5 to sources	Colin Lee	26 Sep 2012
Dalhousie	Aerosol microphysics simulation of AOD and PM2.5	Betty Croft	26 Sep 2012
Dalhousie	Aerosol scavenging, nuclear accident simulation (137-CS, 133-XE)	Betty Croft	03 Jan 2013
Dalhousie	Satellite-based estimates of Asian PM2.5	Junwei Xu	26 Sep 2012
Dalhousie	Aerosol microphysics: effects of nucleation, emissions and SOA on aerosol size distribution	Jeff Pierce	03 Jan 2011
Dalhousie	Historical trends in global satellite-derived estimates of PM2.5	Brian Boys	27 Apr 2011
Dalhousie	Historical trends in aerosol speciation in North America	Sara Torbatian	27 Apr 2011
Harvard	Aerosol scavenging in continental outflow; intercontinental transport and dissipation of pollution plumes	Sungshik Kim	13 Jul 2010
MIT	PM2.5 concentrations and health impacts, including future emissions trends	Noelle Selin	29 Jun 2010
MIT	Examining long term trends of dust in the tropics	Dave Ridley	10 April 2012
MIT	Investigating sub-grid variability and scale invariance of dust emissions	Dave Ridley	25 September 2012
MIT	Integrating RRTMG in GEOS-Chem (LW and SW, gases and aerosols), evaluating aerosol forcing	Dave Ridley Colette Heald	25 September 2012
MIT	Investigating impact of black carbon aging and mixing on radiative forcing	Xuan Wang	25 September 2012
MIT	Investigating NHx system (GEOS-Chem compared to surface, CalNex and IASI observations)	Luke Schiferl	20 May 2010
MIT	Developing a scheme to describe the aging of organic aerosol	Qi Chen	8 Apr 2013
MIT	Impact of 2000-2050 changes in climate, vegetation and land use on aerosols	Amos Tai	9 May 2013
MIT/CU	Investigating transpacific transport of aerosol and gas-phase pollution.	Kateryna Lapina	13 Apr 2009
MIT/CSU	Investigating aerosols in the Southeastern US	Bonne Ford	01 Feb 2012
NASA LaRC	transpacific transport of dust and sulfate; composition of Asian upper tropopause aerosol layer (ATAL).	Duncan Fairlie	10 Apr 2013
NIA / LaRC	Radiative effects of aerosols vs. clouds	Hongyu Liu	05 Feb 2010
Peking University	Carbonaceous aerosols in China	May Fu	01 Jul 2010
Peking University	Biomass burning aerosols in South and East Asia	May Fu	01 Jul 2010
Peking University	Estimate of interdecadal variation in direct radiative effect of aerosols over global lands	Jintai Lin	01 Nov 2010
Peking University	Anthropogenic dust and impacts on global environment	Jintai Lin	01 May 2011
University of Athens-National Observatory of Athens (Greece)	Study of aerosols over Europe and Greece by coupling Geos-chem (v8-03-01) with Camx	Anna Protonotariou	01 Jul 2010
UNL	aerosol retrieval from satellite, aerosol direct and indirect effect.	Jun Wang	22 Apr 2009
University of L'Aquila	Participation in organic aerosol AEROCOM intercomparison (v8.02.02 of GEOS-Chem)	Gabriele Curci	24 Jun 2009
University of L'Aquila	Development of a post-processing tool for aerosol optical properties computations	Gabriele Curci	20 Jan 2011
UW	Investigating the chemistry of sulfate and nitrate aerosol formation utilizing observations and modeling of oxygen isotopes	Becky Alexander	30 Jun 2010
UW	Developing a new parameterization of sea-salt emissions and dry deposition	Lyatt Jaeglé	01 Jul 2010
UW	Transport of aerosols to the Arctic using CALIOP observations	Maurizio DiPierro	01 Jul 2010
UW	Long-range transport of aerosols from Asia and N. America	Yurong Luan	01 Jul 2010
SNU	Evaluation of regional aerosol simulations with the nested G-C over East Asia	Rokjin Park	15 Sep 2009
SNU	Implement the VBS method in GEOS-Chem for SOA	Rokjin Park Dusung Jo	28 Sep 2012
SNU	Siberian forest fire aerosols and climatic effects	Rokjin Park Seungeun Lee	28 Sep 2012
SUNY-Albany	Formation and evolution of particles in the troposphere	Fangqun Yu	06 Mar 2010

Recent GEOS-Chem updates related to aerosols

We have added the following updates pertaining to aerosols to recent GEOS-Chem versions:

Version	Released	Description	Contact
v9-01-03	Sep 2012	Dust submicron size distribution for optics	Dave Ridley, CSU
v9-01-03	Sep 2012	Modifications to sea salt emissions and dry deposition	Lyatt Jaegle and Becky Alexander, U Washington
v9-01-03	Sep 2012	Various updates to wet deposition to impact aerosol simulation, see Wet Deposition Further Updates	Qiaoqiao Wang, Harvard
v9-01-02	Nov 2011	Implementation of APM aerosol microphysics model	Fangqun Yu, SUNY Albany Gan Luo, SUNY Albany
v9-01-02	Nov 2011	Removing inconsistencies in aerosol diagnostics	Sungshik Patrick Kim, Harvard
v9-01-02	Nov 2011	Updated aerosol dry deposition velocities over snow and ice surfaces	Jenny Fisher, Harvard
v9-01-02	Nov 2011	Added seasonality to Streets NH3 emissions over Asia	Jenny Fisher, Harvard
v9-01-01	Jun 2011	FlexAOD post-processing tool for the community	Gabriele Curci, University of l'Aquila
v8-03-02	Sep 2010	Using GEOS-5 liquid water content (LWC) and cloud fraction fields directly (rather than a parameterization) for aqueous sulfate chemistry	Jenny Fisher, Harvard
v8-03-02	Sep 2010	Implementation of new Bond et al. BC/OC emissions NOTE: Aerosol comparisons have been added to the standard 1 year benchmark, including speciated IMPROVE and PM2.5 from North America and Europe. Others are welcome to contribute 2005 observations to this effort (Colette Heald, CSU)	E. Leibensperger, Harvard
v8-03-01	May 2010	Updating of GEOS-Chem aerosol optics	Colette Heald, CSU
v8-03-01	May 2010	ISORROPIA II in GEOS-Chem, implemented along with new isoprene chemistry from Caltech	Havala Pye, (formerly Caltech, now EPA)
v8-03-01	May 2010	Recommendation to remove SOA condensation in inorganic aerosol from standard code	Colette Heald, CSU
v8-03-01	May 2010	Adding aromatic SOA to standard code, released with Caltech isoprene chemistry	Daven Henze, CU Boulder
v8-03-01	May 2010	Implementation of TOMAS aerosol microphysics model	Peter Adams, CMU
v8-02-04	Feb 2010	Implementation of new volcanic emissions of SO2 from AeroCom	Jenny Fisher, Harvard
v8-02-04	Feb 2010	Updates and fixes to sea salt routine	Lyatt Jaegle, UW Becky Alexander, UW

--Bob Y. 15:48, 6 September 2012 (EDT)

On-going Aerosol Working Group Developments

We plan to add these aerosol-related updates to GEOS-Chem in the next few releases:

Update	Authors	Planned release
Integrating a radiative transfer model into GEOS-Chem	Colette Heald (MIT) David Ridley (MIT) Karen Cady-Pereira (AER) Matt Alvarado (AER)	Delivered to GCST; slated for inclusion post-v9-02
Expansion of SOA option (SOA + nonvolatile POA)	Havala Pye (formerly Caltech, now EPA)	Implemented in v9-02, awaiting release
Simplified description of uptake of SO2, nitric acid and sulfuric acid on mineral dust	Duncan Fairlie, Langley	Delivered to GCST; slated for inclusion post-v9-02

--Bob Y. 15:49, 6 September 2012 (EDT)

Future Development Priorities

These topics were raised at the IGC5 as future updates & development priorities for GEOS-Chem (with additions from the community in recent months):

Update	Authors	Priority
Integrating online radiative forcing calculations into GEOS-Chem	Colette Heald (MIT), David Ridley (MIT)	high
Addition of effective wind speed to met fields for consistent resolution dust/sea salt emissions	Jeff Pierc (Dalhousie), David Ridley (MIT) and GCST	medium
Addition of deposition observations to aerosol benchmark	Colette Heald (MIT)	low
dust simulation expansion (tagged simulation, oxalate, P, Fe chemistry)	Matthew Johnson (NC State)	low
DMS oxidation scheme updating	TBD	low
Investigation of how aerosol water is treated in PM comparisons (ISORROPIA vs. hygroscopic growth curves)	TBD	low
APM capability for nested grid	Fangqun Yu (SUNY Albany)
TOMAS capability for nested grid	Jeff Pierce (Dalhousie)
Cloudwater pH for sulfate formation	Becky Alexander (U Washington)
Tagged sulfate and nitrate simulation	Becky Alexander (U. Washington)
Improved dust simulation in nested-grid model	Rokjin Park (Seoul National University)

--Colette Heald 12:39, 9 May 2011 (EDT)
--Bob Y. 14:14, 8 August 2011 (EDT)

Aerosol optical properties

Please visit our new aerosol optical properties wiki page for more information about:

1. Description of GEOS-Chem aerosol optics
2. Aerosol optical properties update for v8-03-01
3. Aerosol optical properties at high spectral resolution

Here is a list of updates that were considered (2, 4 and 5 are included in the v8-03-01 update):

Proposed Update (include information on old values if known)	Reference	Contact
Account for absorption in the 300-500 nm range by OC, which may be greater than presently treated. Currently we have OC ss albedo in this range being > 0.95, though it may be lower than 0.85.	Barnard et al, 2008	Daven Henze
Expand Mie table to include more wavelengths. Most literature values compare at 500 or 550 nm. Current GC lookup table includes 400, then 600. A wider range is also necessary for integrating to get total SW flux; something greater than 1500 perhaps?	Martin et al, 2004	Daven Henze
Consider using the water content of the fine mode aerosol calculated in the aerosol thermodynamic module rather than hygroscopic growth curves to estimate wet particle effective radius.	N/A	Daven Henze
Consider changing the "default" AOD diagnostic wavelength from 400 nm to 550nm (for matching with MODIS & CALIPSO)	N/A	Colette Heald
Treat the radius of hydrophylic organic aerosol similar to that of sulfate. This is based on observations that organic aerosol and sulfate are often internally mixed. Should we consider something similar for black carbon?	Rupkheti et al., 2007	Randall Martin

Related Topics

• Aerosol emissions
• Aerosol microphysics simulations:
  • with APM
  • with TOMAS
• Aerosol-only simulation
• Aerosol thermodynamical equilibrium
• Carbonaceous aerosols
• Mineral dust aerosols
• Secondary organic aerosols
• Sea salt aerosols
• Sulfate aerosols
• ISORROPIA II
• Photolysis mechanism in GEOS-Chem