Sea-salt and dust aerosols in the ECMWF IFS model

The ECMWF IFS model has recently been modified to include prognostic aerosols in its analysis and forecast modules. For the sea salt and dust components, comparisons of three versions of the model are presented: (i) a forecast only model started from conventional analysis with free-running aerosols, (ii) a full analysis including aerosols, and (iii) as in (i) but with sea salt and dust sources revised to account for the 10-m wind including gustiness and calibrated on the aerosol analysis results. It is shown that this new formulation of the sources of the main natural aerosols gives an improved agreement with AERONET surface observations where sea salt and dust aerosols are dominant. It also shows how the information brought by the aerosol analysis can be used to improve the representation of aerosols in numerical weather prediction and climate-type general circulation models. Citation: Morcrette, J.-J., A. Beljaars, A. Benedetti, L. Jones, and O. Boucher (2008), Sea-salt and dust aerosols in the ECMWF IFS model, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L24813, doi:10.1029/2008GL036041.