Effects of below-cloud scavenging on the regional aerosol budget in East Asia

Abstract

We examine the effects of below-cloud scavenging on regional aerosol simulations over East Asia using wet deposition fluxes observed at Acid Deposition Monitoring Network in East Asia (EANET) sites and the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model together with a new below-cloud-scavenging scheme. Typical air quality models, including CMAQ, assume below-cloud scavenging as a simple first-order process with a constant or simple form depending on rain intensity. The scheme used here accounts for the collection efficiency, terminal velocity of raindrops, raindrop-size distributions, and particle-size distributions, which are important factors affecting below-cloud scavenging. We conduct model simulations for spring 2001, including baseline and sensitivity simulations. Our analysis mainly focuses on May 2001 to rule out the effect of dust aerosols. Simulated wet deposition fluxes of SO42−, NO3−, and NH4+ by the new scheme are increased by 103, 16, and 108%, respectively, relative to the baseline simulation and show better agreement with observations. The effect of below-cloud scavenging on coarse particles is even greater, producing wet deposition fluxes two orders of magnitude higher than the baseline. The resulting changes in the model indicate the considerable impacts of below-cloud scavenging on regional aerosol simulations over East Asia, where both anthropogenic emissions and natural sources of aerosols are present throughout the year. An accurate wet scavenging simulation is critical to simulate the atmospheric burden and wet deposition fluxes of both fine-mode and coarse-mode aerosols over East Asia.