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Evaluating Model Concentrations of Short-Lived Climate Forcers, as Used in the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme, with Ground-Based Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy

The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) is an Arctic Council Working Group focused on studying the Arctic environment and the impacts of climate change, providing detailed reports to inform policy development. Previous AMAP reports analyzed the impacts of black carbon, tropospheric O3 and CH4 on the Arctic. The 2021 AMAP report is focused on the impact of Short-Lived Climate Forcers (SLCFs) on the Arctic climate, atmospheric chemistry, and human health. SLCFs are gases and aerosols that influence Earth’s radiative budget, with lifetimes shorter than that of CO2. The work presented here evaluates the modeled concentrations of O3, CH4 , and CO from eleven AMAP models: CESM, CMAM, DEHM, EMEP-MSC-W, GEM-MACH, GEOS-Chem, MATCH, MATCH-SALSA, MRIESM2, UKESM1 and WRF-Chem. The modelled mixing ratios are output at three-hour intervals for the years 2008, 2009, 2014 and 2015. These outputs are assessed against corresponding trace gas measurements from ground-based Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectrometers. The results discussed in this talk use measurements made by the Bruker 125HR FTIR instrument at the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory, in Eureka, Nunavut (80.05ºN, 86.42ºW). The instrument has been operating since 2006, and is part of the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Change (NDACC) Infrared Working Group.

Event series  Brewer-Wilson Seminar Series