Recent climate modelling studies illustrate the potential of aerosols to change large-scale atmospheric circulation, and with this the global patterns of precipitation. However, it remains unclear to what extent the proposed aerosol-induced changes reflect robust model behavior or are affected by uncertainties in the models of physical processes, most notably those related to moist phenomena. Easy Aerosol addresses these questions by subjecting comprehensive atmosphere general circulation models to the same set of idealized easy aerosol perturbations that are designed based on a global aerosol climatology and mimic the gravest mode of the anthropogenic aerosol.
Easy Aerosol is part of the WCRP Grand Challenge on "Clouds, circulation, and climate sensitivity" and the COOKIES&CREAM project of EUCLIPSE. The document below discusses the motivation of Easy Aerosol, describes the aerosol perturbations, and defines the experimental protocol. The input files required to run the simulations are provided below:
If you are interested in participating or have any questions please contact Aiko Voigt (
The following meetings are/were either initiated by the Grand Challenge on Clouds, Circulation and Climate Sensitivity or included Sessions organized by it or have other strong thematic links to it: