MOZART, a global chemical transport model for ozone and related chemical tracers: 1. Model description

Abstract

We present a new global three‐dimensional chemical‐transport model (called MOZART) developed in the framework of the NCAR Community Climate Model (CCM) and aimed at studying the distribution and budget of tropospheric ozone and its precursors. The model, developed with a horizontal resolution of 2.8° in longitude and latitude, includes 25 levels in the vertical between the Earth's surface and an upper boundary located at approximately 35 km altitude. In its present configuration the model calculates the global distribution of 56 chemical constituents with a timestep of 20 min, and accounts for surface emission and deposition, large‐scale advective transport, subscale convective and boundary layer exchanges, chemical and photochemical transformations, as well as wet scavenging. Transport is simulated “off line” from CCM with dynamical variables provided every 3 hours from preestablished history tapes. Advection is calculated using the semi‐Lagrangian transport scheme [Rasch and Williamson, 1990] developed for the MATCH model of Rasch et al. [1997]. Convective and boundary layer transports are expressed according to Hack [1994] and Holtslag and Boville [1993], respectively. A detailed evaluation of the model results is provided in a companion paper [Hauglustaine et al., this issue]. An analysis of the spatial and temporal variability in the chemical fields predicted by the model suggests that regional events such as summertime ozone episodes in polluted areas can be simulated by MOZART.