Evaluation of cloud and water vapor simulations in CMIP5 climate models Using NASA "A-Train" satellite observations

International audience[1] Using NASA's A-Train satellite measurements, we evaluate the accuracy of cloud water content (CWC) and water vapor mixing ratio (H2O) outputs from 19 climate models submitted to the Phase 5 of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5), and assess improvements relative to their counterparts for the earlier CMIP3. We find more than half of the models show improvements from CMIP3 to CMIP5 in simulating column-integrated cloud amount, while changes in water vapor simulation are insignificant. For the 19 CMIP5 models, the model spreads and their differences from the observations are larger in the upper troposphere (UT) than in the lower or middle troposphere (L/MT). The modeled mean CWCs over tropical oceans range from ~3% to ~15× of the observations in the UT and 40% to 2× of the observations in the L/MT. For modeled H2Os, the mean values over tropical oceans range from ~1% to 2× of the observations in the UT and within 10% of the observations in the L/MT. The spatial distributions of clouds at 215 hPa are relatively well-correlated with observations, noticeably better than those for the L/MT clouds. Although both water vapor and clouds are better simulated in the L/MT than in the UT, there is no apparent correlation between the model biases in clouds and water vapor. Numerical scores are used to compare different model performances in regards to spatial mean, variance and distribution of CWC and H2O over tropical oceans. Model performances at each pressure level are ranked according to the average of all the relevant scores for that level. © 2012. American Geophysical Union

Validation of the Aura Microwave Limb Sounder HNO3 Measurements

[1] We assess the quality of the version 2.2 (v2.2) HNO(3) measurements from the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) on the Earth Observing System Aura satellite. The MLS HNO(3) product has been greatly improved over that in the previous version (v1.5), with smoother profiles, much more realistic behavior at the lowest retrieval levels, and correction of a high bias caused by an error in one of the spectroscopy files used in v1.5 processing. The v2.2 HNO(3) data are scientifically useful over the range 215 to 3.2 hPa, with single-profile precision of similar to 0.7 ppbv throughout. Vertical resolution is 3-4 km in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere, degrading to similar to 5 km in the middle and upper stratosphere. The impact of various sources of systematic uncertainty has been quantified through a comprehensive set of retrieval simulations. In aggregate, systematic uncertainties are estimated to induce in the v2.2 HNO(3) measurements biases that vary with altitude between +/- 0.5 and +/- 2 ppbv and multiplicative errors of +/- 5-15% throughout the stratosphere, rising to similar to +/- 30% at 215 hPa. Consistent with this uncertainty analysis, comparisons with correlative data sets show that relative to HNO(3) measurements from ground- based, balloon- borne, and satellite instruments operating in both the infrared and microwave regions of the spectrum, MLS v2.2 HNO(3) mixing ratios are uniformly low by 10-30% throughout most of the stratosphere. Comparisons with in situ measurements made from the DC-8 and WB-57 aircraft in the upper troposphere and lowermost stratosphere indicate that the MLS HNO(3) values are low in this region as well, but are useful for scientific studies (with appropriate averaging)