Implications of the choice of land surface model schemes and reanalyzes data for initialization in model simulations with WRF to characterize atmospheric dynamics and the effect on black carbon concentrations into the Eurasian Arctic

Realistic simulation of physical and dynamical processes happening in the Arctic surface and atmosphere, and the interacting feedbacks of these processes is still a challenge for Arctic climate modelers. This is critical when further studies involving for the example transport mechanisms and pathways of pollutants from lower latitudes into the Arctic rely on the efficiency of the model to represent atmospheric circulation, especially given the complexity of the Arctic atmosphere. In this work we evaluate model performance of the Weather Research and Forecast model (WRF) according to the choice of two land surface model schemes (Noah and NoahMP) and two reanalyzes data for initialization to create lateral boundary conditions (ERA-interim and ASR) to simulate surface and atmosphere dynamics including the location and displacement of the polar dome and other features characterizing atmospheric circulation associated to sea ice maxima/minima extent within the Eurasian Arctic conformed by the Nordic countries in Northern Europe and part of West Russia. Sensitivity analyses include simulations at 15km horizontal resolution within a period of five years from 2008 to 2012. The WRF model simulations are evaluated against surface meteorological data from automated weather stations and atmospheric profiles from radiosondes. Results show that the model is able to reproduce the main features of the atmospheric dynamics and vertical structure of the Arctic atmosphere reasonably well. The model is, however, sensitive to the choice of the reanalyses used for initialization and land surface scheme with significant biases in the simulated description of surface meteorology and winds, moisture and temperature profiles. The best choice of physical parameterization is then used in the WRF with coupled chemistry (WRF-Chem) to simulate BC concentrations in several case studies within the analyzed period in our domain and assess the role of modeled circulation in concentrations of BC inside our Arctic domain. Results from simulations with coupled chemistry are evaluated against several Aerosol Optical Depth of several Aeronet stations and Black Carbon concentrations and Particle Concentration Numbers from several stations from the EBAS database.