Organic Aerosol Volatility Parameterizations and Their Impact on Atmospheric Composition and Climate

Despite their importance and ubiquity in the atmosphere, organic aerosols are still very poorly parameterized in global models. This can be explained by two reasons: first, a very large number of unconstrained parameters are involved in accurate parameterizations, and second, a detailed description of semi-volatile organics is computationally very expensive. Even organic aerosol properties that are known to play a major role in the atmosphere, namely volatility and aging, are poorly resolved in global models, if at all. Studies with different models and different parameterizations have not been conclusive on whether the additional complexity improves model simulations, but the added diversity of the different host models used adds an unnecessary degree of variability in the evaluation of results that obscures solid conclusions.