Advancing NOAA's Global Ensemble Forecast System (GEFS) through the Integration of Prognostic Aerosols

Ongoing efforts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Weather Service (NWS) are aimed at increasing the realism of the physical processes represented in both global and regional operational numerical weather prediction systems. These efforts include enhancing the description of atmospheric composition and its impact on the atmosphere by incorporating prognostic aerosols and aerosol radiative feedback in each member of the NOAA Global Ensemble Forecast System (GEFS).

Modern Earth system prototypes, built upon the community-based Unified Forecast System (UFS) framework and coupling atmosphere, land, ocean, sea ice, waves, and prognostic aerosols components are being developed and evaluated at the Environmental Modeling Center (EMC) in the process of identifying candidates for the planned operational upgrade of GEFS to version 13.

Prognostic aerosols are integrated in GEFS through the coupled UFS-Aerosols component, developed at EMC in collaboration with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO). UFS-Aerosols embeds NASA's 2nd-generation Goddard Chemistry Aerosol Radiation and Transport (GOCART) model and incorporates updates to the dust scheme and anthropogenic and biogenic emissions from NOAA’s Air Resources Laboratory (ARL), along with wildfire emissions provided by NOAA's National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS).

The impact of radiative feedback from prognostic aerosols on atmospheric predictions in preliminary experiments with GEFS version 13 prototypes will be reviewed.