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Verification of binary nucleation against Vehkamaki et al. (2002)

To verify that the binary nucleation parameterization of Vehkamaki et al. (2002, 2013) described on this page is implmented correctly, tests were developed to reproduce some representative figures in Vehkamaki et al. 2002.

Test driver

The test driver file is skywalker_mam_test_newnuc.F90 in the mam_refactor code repository, located under standalone/tests/nucleation/.

This test driver exercises subroutine mer07_veh02_wang08_nuc_1box in MAM's aerosol microphysics code package which in term calls the binary, ternary nucleation, and/or PBL nucleation subroutines in the mam_refactor repository. Which nucleation parameterization is actually tested depends on the input parameters.

Input parameters

Input parameters are specified using YAML files stored in the mam_x_validation repository. The YAML files are imported to each clone of the mam_refactor repository as part of a submodule. The YAML files for the tests described on this page are located under standalone/tests/mam_x_validation/nucleation/:

• vehkamaki2002_fig8.yaml
• vehkamaki2002_fig9.yaml
• vehkamaki2002_fig10.yaml
• vehkamaki2002_fig11.yaml

Test output: data and plots

After executing the verification tests, the output data and plots can be found in your build directory under standalone/tests/nucleation/.

The plots are generated using the script standalone/tests/mam_x_validation/nucleation/generate_plots.py.

Reference results

Nucleation rates in Fig. 8 of Vehkamaki et al. (2002) repoduced with MAM

Nucleation rates in Fig. 9 of Vehkamaki et al. (2002) repoduced with MAM

Nucleation rates in Fig. 10 of Vehkamaki et al. (2002) repoduced with MAM

Nucleation rates in Fig. 11 of Vehkamaki et al. (2002) repoduced with MAM