A comparison of measurements and global model simulations of the atmospheric aerosol at two remote sites Available to Purchase

Atmospheric aerosol measurements conducted at Environment Canada's observation sites at Alert, Nunavut and the peak of Whistler Mountain, British Columbia are compared with simulations from the global chemical transport model GEOS-Chem with the two-moment bin aerosol microphysics module TOMAS and with the Canadian Atmospheric Global Climate Model (CanAM4). The year-long comparisons show generally good agreement in terms of volume and mass concentrations. The carbonaceous aerosol is underestimated by GEOS-Chem-TOMAS (previously noted by others) and the size distributions, while similar, indicate larger particles and lower number concentrations. The lower numbers and larger particles predicted by GEOS-Chem-TOMAS may be connected with the underestimated carbonaceous aerosol.