WACCM-D Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model with D-region ion chemistry

For example, production of odd nitrogen and odd hydrogen during strong events can decrease ozone by tens of percent. However, the standard ion chemistry parameterization used in atmospheric models neglects the effects on some important species, such as nitric acid.

We present WACCM-D, a variant of the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model, which includes a set of lower ionosphere (D-region) chemistry: 307 reactions of 20 positive ions and 21 negative ions. We consider realistic ionization scenarios and compare the WACCM-D results to those from the Sodankylä Ion and Neutral Chemistry (SIC), a state-of-the-art 1-D model of the D-region chemistry. We show that WACCM-D produces well the main characteristics of the D-region ionosphere, as well as the overall proportion of important ion groups, in agreement with SIC.