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Aerosols and Greenhouse Gases

Greenhouse gases and aerosols interact with short-wave and long-wave radiation.  The effects can heat or cool the atmosphere and surface and so can impact the forecasts.

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For reliable treatment of the interaction with radiation the global distribution of greenhouse gases and aerosols needs to be well represented .  There are two different configurations of the IFS that are used operationally, and which represent their global distribution in different ways:

CAMS forecasts

Air-quality forecasts for the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), including the CAMS reanalysis, gases and aerosols are represented by prognostic variables.  These are advected with model winds, and source and sink processes are also represented.

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• • Aerosol particles are advected by:
    • the mean winds.
    • vertical diffusion.
    • convective lofting.
    • sedimentation.
    • dry deposition.
    • wet deposition (by large-scale and convective precipitation).

All other forecasts

These include: medium range, extended-range and seasonal forecasts, and ECMWF reanalysis products.

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Note: before the introduction of IFS Cycle 43R3 in July 2017, an older aerosol climatology was used that considered fewer aerosol species and did not include the dependence of optical properties on relative humidity.  

Additional Sources of Information

(Note: In older material there may be references to issues that have subsequently been addressed)

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