Development of the CCPP-based GEFS-aerosols component in the Unified Forecast System for subseasonal prediction (UFS-Chem v1.0)

Zhang, Li; Li, Haiqin; Grell, Georg A.; Bhattacharjee, Partha S.; Ferrada, Gonzalo A.; Green, Benjamin W.; Sun, Shan; Bernardet, Ligia; Jensen, Anders; Baker, Barry; Pan, Li; He, Jian; Schnell, Jordan; Ahmadov, Ravan; Trahan, Samuel; Swales, Dustin; Cheng, Anning; Yang, Fanglin; Schwantes, Rebecca H.; Mcdonald, Brian C.; Heinzeller, Dominikus; Kondragunta, Shobha

doi:10.5194/gmd-19-8597-2026

i

Development of the CCPP-based GEFS-aerosols component in the Unified Forecast System for subseasonal prediction (UFS-Chem v1.0)

2026
By Zhang, Li ; Li, Haiqin ; Grell, Georg A.
Source Geoscientific Model Development, 19(18), 8597-8626

[PDF - 12.60 MB]

Details

Journal Title:

Geoscientific Model Development
Personal Author:

Zhang, Li ; Li, Haiqin ; Grell, Georg A. ; Bhattacharjee, Partha S. ; Ferrada, Gonzalo A. ; Green, Benjamin W. ; Sun, Shan ; Bernardet, Ligia ; Jensen, Anders ; Baker, Barry ; Pan, Li ; He, Jian ; Schnell, Jordan ; Ahmadov, Ravan ; Trahan, Samuel ; Swales, Dustin ; Cheng, Anning ; Yang, Fanglin ; Schwantes, Rebecca H. ; Mcdonald, Brian C. ; Heinzeller, Dominikus ; Kondragunta, Shobha
NOAA Program & Office:

OAR (Oceanic and Atmospheric Research) ; NWS (National Weather Service) ; NESDIS (National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service) ; CIRES (Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences) ; OMD (Office of Modeling and Development) ; CSL (Chemical Sciences Laboratory) ; GSL (Global Systems Laboratory) ; STAR (Center for Satellite Applications and Research) ; NESDIS (National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service) ; OAR (Oceanic and Atmospheric Research) ; NWS (National Weather Service)
Description:

The Global Ensemble Forecast System (GEFS) version 12 has been operational at the National Centers for Environmental Prediction since September 2020, with GEFS-Aerosols serving as its global aerosol forecasting member. In 2023, GEFS-Aerosols was upgraded to version 12.3 in operations, incorporating improvements to wet deposition, anthropogenic and biomass burning emissions, aerosol optical depth calculations, and the FENGSHA dust emission scheme. While GEFS-Aerosols provides valuable operational aerosol forecasts on medium-range timescales, its one-way coupling strategy restricts aerosol-atmosphere interactions to prescribed climatological fields, thereby precluding fully interactive aerosol feedbacks for extended-range prediction. To overcome this limitation, we develop the Unified Forecast System coupled with Chemistry (UFS-Chem), which incorporates the Configurable Atmospheric Chemistry (CATChem) library and modeling component to include both aerosol and gas-phase chemistry schemes. In the current UFS-Chem configuration, the aerosol component is based on the operational GEFS-Aerosols v12.3 and implemented using the Common Community Physics Package (CCPP) framework. Relative to GEFS-Aerosols v12.3, UFS-Chem incorporates several enhancements, including inline aerosol radiative feedback, inline large-scale wet deposition, and updated FENGSHA dust scheme. In particular, the integration of inline large-scale wet deposition and aerosol indirect effects through the Thompson aerosol-aware microphysics scheme improves the representation of aerosol-cloud interactions and supports weather and subseasonal-to-seasonal forecasting when fully coupled with ocean, sea ice, land, and wave components. The performance of UFS-Chem in weather and subseasonal prediction is evaluated against reanalysis data, ground-based measurements, and satellite observations. The relative impacts of aerosol radiative and indirect effects on weather and subseasonal predictions are investigated and quantified, advancing our understanding of how aerosol-radiation and aerosol-cloud interactions influence forecast skill across timescales.
Source:

Geoscientific Model Development, 19(18), 8597-8626
DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-19-8597-2026
ISSN:

1991-9603
Format:

PDF
Publisher:

Copernicus GmbH
Document Type:

Journal Article
Funding:

Grant no. NA23OAR4050201I ; Grant no. NA23OAR4050200D ; Grant no. NA22OAR4320151 ; Grant no. NA23OAR4590387
License:

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Rights Information:

CC BY
Compliance:

Submitted
Download URL:

https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/76514/noaa_76514_DS1.pdf
File Type:

[PDF - 12.60 MB]
Collection(s):

Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) ; NOAA Cooperative Institutes ; National Weather Service (NWS) ; National Environmental Satellite and Data Information Service (NESDIS)
Main Document Checksum:

urn:sha-512:3e202e5c7d4401471b1cb9ef250d84e920e57d21d688cea2f4e9d92f37a0256401c355d5f570996f6bed86120d67ab4aea3b655fffc46464aa99042daa75a20c

ON THIS PAGE

Details

Found an issue?

Send us an email at:

noaa.repository@noaa.gov

The NOAA IR serves as an archival repository of NOAA-published products including scientific findings, journal articles, guidelines, recommendations, or other information authored or co-authored by NOAA or funded partners. As a repository, the NOAA IR retains documents in their original published format to ensure public access to scientific information.

BACK TO TOP