Features of mid- and high-latitude low-level clouds and  their relation to strong aerosol effects in the Energy  Exascale Earth System Model version 2 (E3SMv2)

Wan, Hui; Yenpure, Abhishek; Geveci, Berk; Easter, Richard C.; Rasch, Philip J.; Zhang, Kai; Zeng, Xubin

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-5655-2025

Articles | Volume 18, issue 17

https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-5655-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-5655-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 18, issue 17

Development and technical paper

|

05 Sep 2025

Development and technical paper |

| 05 Sep 2025

Features of mid- and high-latitude low-level clouds and their relation to strong aerosol effects in the Energy Exascale Earth System Model version 2 (E3SMv2)

Hui Wan, Abhishek Yenpure, Berk Geveci, Richard C. Easter, Philip J. Rasch, Kai Zhang, and Xubin Zeng

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-5655-2025-supplement

Data sets

CDNC and ERFaer in E3SMv2: numerical experiment results from free-running present-day simulations Hui Wan https://doi.org/10.25584/2481237

CDNC and ERFaer in E3SMv2: numerical experiment results from nudged simulations under present-day and pre-industrial emission scenarios Kai Zhang and Hui Wan https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14518205

Model code and software

Codes and scripts for an investigation of CDNC and ERFaer in E3SMv2 Hui Wan and Kai Zhang https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14517254

Video supplement

An animation of Arctic clouds simulated by E3SMv2 Abhishek Yenpure et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14523176

An animation of clouds over southeast China simulated by E3SMv2 Abhishek Yenpure et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14523263

Short summary

In the Energy Exascale Earth System Model version 2 (E3SMv2) and many other global models, the simulated anthropogenic aerosol effective radiative forcing is sensitive to the presence of clouds with very low droplet number concentrations. Numerical experiments presented in this paper indicate that mid- and high-latitude low-level stratus occurring under weak turbulence is a key cloud regime for investigating the causes of these very low cloud droplet number concentrations in E3SMv2.