Prognostic Greenhouse Tracers in the CCCma Atmospheric GCM
Abstract
Improvements to the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling (CCCma) atmospheric GCM, as part of ongoing work within the Canadian Global Coupled Carbon Climate Modelling (CGC3M) project, are described. Specifically, a prognostic tracer scheme has been introduced for methane and nitrous oxide, including parameterized chemical loss of both species and methane oxidation as a source of water vapour in the stratosphere. Results and sensitivity tests of ten-year climate simulations forced with climatological SSTs, sea ice, ozone, and specified surface concentration distributions of the tracers are presented. Zonally-averaged distributions are compared with UARS (HALOE/CLAES) climatology for the years 1992 to present. The model is able to reproduce the observed latitude-height distributions and seasonal variations of these radiatively important species with an accuracy sufficient for long-term transient climate simulations.
- Publication:
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AGU Spring Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- May 2004
- Bibcode:
- 2004AGUSM.A21B..05C
- Keywords:
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- 0300 ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE;
- 0322 Constituent sources and sinks;
- 0341 Middle atmosphere: constituent transport and chemistry (3334)