Project Structure WP1: Emissions WP2: Observations WP3: Sensitivity Studies WP4: Reanalysis Simulations WP5: Policy and Impacts

 

RETRO Work Package 4: Long-term Simulations

The global model simulations of atmospheric chemistry and transport from 1960 to 2000 constitute the core deliverable of the RETRO project. Running a global model for such a long period, retrieving all the required input data and archiving the model output necessary for the analysis of tropospheric composition trends and variability patterns represents a grand technical challenge and requires strong support from supercomputing centers.

 

Three of the five RETRO models (two chemistry general circulation models and one chemistry transport model) participated in this activity of running the complete 41-year reanalysis simulations. The other two models (two CTMs) ran time slice experiments and focused on sensitivity studies. The set-up of the models with respect to the meteorological input data from the ERA-40 reanalysis of the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) is shown in the table below. For information on the emissions and other boundary conditions used, see the emissions data and boundary conditions pages and the report D4-4.

 

Model set-up
Meteorological variables from the ERA-40 data set used by the five RETRO models. The two chemistry general circulation models (ECHAM5-MOZ and LMDz-INCA) have the least constraints in their simulations.

 

 

For a description of the model results see the model results page and the report D4-4.