Effective radiative forcing in the aerosol–climate model CAM5.3-MARC-ARG

We quantify the effective radiative forcing (ERF) of anthropogenic aerosols modelled by the aerosol-climate model CAM5.3-MARC-ARG. CAM5.3-MARC-ARG is a new configuration of the Community Atmosphere Model version 5.3 (CAM5.3) in which the default aerosol module has been replaced by the two-Moment, Multi-Modal, Mixing-state-resolving Aerosol model for Research of Climate (MARC). CAM5.3-MARC-ARG uses the ARG aerosol-activation scheme, consistent with the default configuration of CAM5.3. We compute differences between simulations using year-1850 aerosol emissions and simulations using year-2000 aerosol emissions in order to assess the radiative effects of anthropogenic aerosols. We compare the aerosol lifetimes, aerosol column burdens, cloud properties, and radiative effects produced by CAM5.3-MARC-ARG with those produced by the default configuration of CAM5.3, which uses the modal aerosol module with three log-normal modes (MAM3), and a configuration using the modal aerosol module with seven log-normal modes (MAM7). Compared with MAM3 and MAM7, we find that MARC produces stronger cooling via the direct radiative effect, the short-wave cloud radiative effect, and the surface albedo radiative effect; similarly, MARC produces stronger warming via the longwave cloud radiative effect. Overall, MARC produces a global mean net ERF of -1.79 +/- 0.03 W m(-2), which is stronger than the global mean net ERF of -1.57 +/- 0.04 W m(-2) produced by MAM3 and -1.53 +/- 0.04 W m(-2) produced by MAM7. The regional distribution of ERF also differs between MARC and MAM3, largely due to differences in the regional distribution of the short-wave cloud radiative effect. We conclude that the specific representation of aerosols in global climate models, including aerosol mixing state, has important implications for climate modelling.