A comparison of scavenging and deposition processes in global models: results from the WCRP Cambridge Workshop of 1995

We report on results from a World Climate Research Program workshop on representations of scavenging and deposition processes in global transport models of the atmosphere. 15 models were evaluated by comparing simulations of radon, lead, sulfur dioxide, and sulfate against each other, and against observations of these constituents. This paper provides a survey on the simulation differences between models. It identifies circumstances where models are consistent with observations or with each other, and where they differ from observations or with each other. The comparison shows that most models are able to simulate seasonal species concentrations near the surface over continental sites to within a factor of 2 over many regions of the globe. Models tend to agree more closely over source (continental) regions than for remote (polar and oceanic) regions. Model simulations differ most strongly in the upper troposphere for species undergoing wet scavenging processes. There are not a sufficient number of observations to characterize the climatology (long-term average) of species undergoing wet scavenging in the upper troposphere. This highlights the need for either a different strategy for model evaluation (e.g., comparisons on an event by event basis) or many more observations of a few carefully chosen constituents.